How Manufacturers Can Reap the Rewards of Digital Transformation

Executive Summary 

For manufacturers, digital transformation is crucial to paving the way for smart manufacturing, also referred to as Industry 4.0, which promises to create more autonomous, flexible, and connected factories and supply chains. At the same time, global competitive pressures are pushing manufacturers to work with an increasingly diverse, dispersed supply chain that demand greater levels of system access and introducing increased levels of risk. Okta’s modern identity and access management platform is a critical catalyst in speeding the transformation process and ensuring your systems and processes work together seamlessly, while allowing you to secure and manage application access across a globally distributed supply chain ecosystem.

Looking Toward the Future of Manufacturing

Every enterprise today has gone through some form of digital transformation. In manufacturing, digital transformation initiatives are very likely part of your organization’s implementation of Industry 4.0. These initiatives promise to help your company thrive in the midst of increased global competition and shrinking profit margins while remaining connected to large, far-flung networks of suppliers and partners. And, they pave the way for a future in which technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of things (IoT) play a significant role on the manufacturing floor and in the supply chain.

While Industry 4.0 promises to help manufacturers become more flexible and competitive, many struggle to execute on modernizing their systems—a crucial part of the process. In fact, IDC predicts that 75 percent of CIOs and their enterprises will fail to meet all their digital objectives through 2019.1 What’s holding manufacturers back? Whether IT teams are moving apps to the cloud, building mobile or web applications, or increasing access for partners, a significant contributing factor