Cloud Digital Leader

https://cloud.google.com/training/business

Course 01: Introducción a la transformación digital con

Google Cloud

Obtén una descripción general de las oportunidades y los desafíos que las empresas suelen
enfrentar en su recorrido de transformación digital. Aprenderás temas fundamentales de la
nube y cómo estos recorridos de transformación se alinean con las soluciones de Google
Cloud.

What is cloud technology or data science? More importantly, what can it do for you, your
team, and your business? If you want to learn about cloud technology so you can excel in
your role and help build the future of your business, then this introductory course on digital
transformation is for you. This course defines foundational terms such as cloud, data, and
digital transformation. It also explores examples of companies around the world that are
using cloud technology to revolutionize their businesses. The course provides an overview of
the types of opportunities and challenges that companies often encounter in their digital
transformation journey and aligns them with the Google Cloud solution pillars. But digital
transformation isn't just about using new technology. To truly transform, organizations also
need to be innovative and scale an innovation mindset across the organization. The course
offers best practices to help you achieve this.
This is the first course in the Cloud Digital Leader series. At the end of this course, enroll in
the Innovating with Data and Google Cloud course

Course Introduction
Saman: There's a lot of excitement about Cloud technology and digital transformation.
But there are also lots of unanswered questions that you might be thinking about.
For example, what is Cloud Technology?
What does digital transformation mean?
What can Cloud Technology do for me or my organization?
Where do I even begin?
If you're asking yourself any of these questions, you're in the right place.
Hi, my name is Saman Javan, Lead Course Developer and Certified Facilitator at Google
Cloud.
I've teamed up with several experts across Google Cloud to compile the fundamentals of
Cloud Technology and digital transformation in this introductory course.
We've organized the course so that it starts with the basics.
In Module 1, I'll discuss what Cloud Technology is, how it is revolutionizing business models
and industries globally, and how you can be part of that journey.
The second module explores the business and technical challenges that any organization
will inevitably face at different points along the digital transformation journey.
I'll also discuss how Google Cloud solution pillars are built to help businesses address these
challenges.
In Module 3, I'll examine culture change as an enabler for digital transformation.
To remain relevant in the Cloud era, it's essential for businesses to adapt how they work and
foster an innovation mindset.
I'll conclude the course by sharing valuable resources beyond this training to support your
digital transformation journey.
Remember, we'll test your knowledge throughout the course with graded assessments,
which you'll need to pass to receive credit for the course.
Let's jump in.

Module 1: Why cloud technology is revolutionizing business

This module introduces cloud technology as a paradigm shift and explains how it’s
irrevocably transforming businesses globally. It defines the fundamental ingredients of cloud
technology—compute power and data—and how they can be used to create new value
within a business.

Introduction

Saman: Hello and welcome to the first module.

In this module, I'll talk about how Cloud technology is changing just about everything.
I'll cover innovations throughout history that led to paradigm shifts in business and human
life.
Then how Cloud technology is enabling a new wave of digital transformation.
Next, I'll break down the trends in compute power and data processing capabilities, and
finally, I'll show you how cloud computing uses industrial scale compute power and vast
amounts of data to create exponential value for businesses.
Let's begin.
Innovation doesn't come in a linear way, it comes in waves, and each of these waves is
powered by a breakthrough technology.
There was the age of the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the transportation
age, the first computers, and today, data science, also known as the age of cloud
technology.
Each of these inventions triggered thousands of innovations in what are called Kondratiev
Waves or innovation waves.
Consider the invention of the printing press.
It was revolutionary because it gave everyone access to books, encyclopedias, and even
playing cards in their day to day lives.
It also led to a broader recognition of intellectual property through widely distributed
patents, which in turn paved the way for the first industrial revolution.
There was no turning back.
Steam powered engines brought us cars and trains, which then radically transformed the
transportation industry, allowing businesses to produce and transport goods at scale.
The entire industrial revolution resulted from new technologies that came together,
enabling new ways of working.
In the same way, electricity brought us the light bulb, household appliances, and
eventually the computer.
These waves all have one thing in common, they transform both the supply and the
demand at the same time.
Let me explain.
On the supply side, the new technology can dramatically improve productivity.
At the same time, the new technology can increase consumption, which generates more
demand.
Let me give you a specific example.
With electricity, factory managers were able to operate during the day and at night.
They could also share information instantly via telegrams, organization suddenly became
much more productive.
At the same time, electricity created new value that didn't exist before.
It gave birth to consumer goods that were then advertised on the radio and on television,
which in turn significantly increased the demand for those consumer goods.
What the printing press, the steam engine and electricity all have in common, is that
they're all examples of a paradigm shift.
A fundamental and irreversible change in the way that humans work and engage with the
world.
Now, how does this relate to current technology?
You guessed it, we're right in the middle of another paradigm shift.
Cloud technology is transforming how businesses create value, how people work, and
ultimately how people live.
As with any other innovation, wave Cloud technology is generating thousands of new
innovations such as chat bots and predictive medicine.
This is a branch of medicine that aims to identify patients at risk of developing a disease,
thereby enabling either prevention or early treatment of that disease.
What is the Cloud or Cloud technology exactly?
How has it created a paradigm shift?
I'll cover that next.

What is Cloud

Saman: The Cloud is a metaphor for the network of data centers that store and compute
information available through the Internet.
Essentially, instead of describing a complex web of software, computers, network, and
security systems, all of that has been combined into one word, Cloud.
When we talk about Cloud computing, we're talking about the technology and processes
needed to store, manage, and access data that is transferred over the Cloud rather than
the data that remains on your computers hard drive.
For most large organizations, such as enterprise companies, government, or education
providers, secure and easy data collection and processing are critical factors for operating
and delivering products and services.
Historically though, these organizations have had to spend substantial amount of money
upfront to set up the necessary infrastructure that would store and process their data.
However, as they grow in size, the cost of maintaining and setting up new infrastructures
substantially increases too.
Companies such as Google Cloud have invested heavily in their own IT infrastructure,
creating vast digital spaces to store and process data.
Now they're helping other organizations around the world by offering them the use of their
digital platform to run their applications at scale.
This has generated massive cost reductions for companies that operated data
warehouses without economies of scale and allowed software developers around the
world to access well-established IT infrastructures.
How is Cloud technology different from the traditional methods that we've used for
decades?
One of the most common misconceptions about radically new technology is that it is only
meant to ease or solve for something we used to need.
For instance, we could all agree that the laptop is much better for typing a message than a
typewriter.
The laptop also replaced the need for a typewriter, but laptops or computers in general are
not only meant to make it easier to type a message, we use them for sending and
receiving messages, reading news articles, for video conferencing, designing graphics,
and so much more.
The same is true for the Cloud.
It's not meant to only be a place to store your data, it's capable of doing so much more.
Cloud is revolutionary because it enables every professional to fundamentally rethink and
re-imagine how they do business, from collecting data to gaining insights from it, to
working with their peers globally, to serving their customers.
When an organization takes advantage of new technologies such as Cloud to redesign
and redefine relationships with their customers, employees, and partners, the result is a
company wide digital transformation.
Digital transformation is about taking advantage of established global scale IT
infrastructures and leveraging vast compute power that makes it possible for developers to
build revolutionary new applications.
It's about a foundational change in how an organization operates and optimizes internal
resources and how it delivers value to customers.
Let me share a few concrete examples of how Cloud technology creates value for
businesses.
Cloud technology can map, understand, and predict human behavior, human biology,
global industrial systems, and every other complex and dynamic environment.
These examples are things we could only dream of doing digitally in the past.
This means that in the same way electricity powered light bulbs, radios, and computers,
Cloud technology is powering a new range of applications that are continuously learning
and improving.
Cloud enables and redefines our ability to collaborate, perceive, categorize, predict, and
recommend in every industry for every activity.
We will explore these ideas further in coming modules.
For now, let's learn more about, one, why it's critical for businesses to embrace new
technology, and two, the implications of staying the same.
We'll look at specific examples of companies that have digitally transformed and thrived
and other companies that have failed to adapt and no longer exist.
Danger of maintaining the status quo

Saman: There's no greater danger for any organization than to keep the technology its
always used to refine and perfect what it's always done instead of letting it go and moving
on to the next technology platform.
Abandoning old technology for a new one is commonly referred to as the "Burning
Platform Effect."
It requires organizations to take a leap of faith and to continually adapt as new
technologies create new paradigm shifts.
Let me illustrate what happens as a result of a burning platform effect with two concrete
examples.
The first company takes advantage of new technology and makes a paradigm shift, and
the second doesn't.
Our first example is Nintendo.
Nintendo has been creating games since 1889.
They started with traditional Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda, which were made
possible by the printing press.
From there, Nintendo has consistently used new technology to transform their business
and become a leader in the gaming industry.
They were even among the first to introduce gaming consoles and mobile gaming devices.
Still, they didn't dwell on these successes.
Instead, they revolutionized mobile gaming when they launched Pokmon Go in 2016.
Then the first cloud gaming console, Nintendo Switch, one year later, in 2017.
At a time when most of their competitors were going out of business, Nintendo jumped
from one burning platform to the next, consistently maintaining and even expanding its
market share and its customer base along the way.
What makes Nintendo so successful at this?
The answer is that they consistently focus on why they exist, not how they operate.
They exist because they want people to play.
Naturally, they'll use any technology as a resource to achieve this mission.
If they focused on liquid crystal displays as the best tool for gaming, then each new
technology would have posed a threat to them.
Instead, they utilized liquid crystal displays for a while and then quickly shifted as the next
technology became available to continue motivating people to play.
This is an example of a company that thrives with new technology.
By contrast, companies that sold encyclopedias all focused on how they operate, how to
print and sell a very specific set of books.
This is what they were proud of, a beautiful set of leather-covered books, lined up on the
shelves of the finest libraries.
Because of the high costs of these sets, only a few scholars or the elite could afford them.
For businesses that made and sold encyclopedias, they needed printing machines, well-
kept warehouses, bookshelf makers, a way to ship and receive heavy containers, and a
good door-to-door selling mechanism.
These companies became obsessed with the books and lost sight of their initial mission, to
capture and share human knowledge by any means.
Naturally, as new technology became available, instead of serving as an opportunity, it
served as a threat to their business.
The first of these threats was the CD-ROMs.
Quite amazingly, all the CD-ROM-based encyclopedia providers made the exact same
mistake and were later driven out of business by cloud-native applications such as
Wikipedia.
Nintendo and encyclopedia companies were both born from the printing era.
Nintendo beginning with traditional playing cards, and encyclopedias stemmed from
traditional books.
Yet the two companies didn't react to their burning platform the same way, and their
business has led to very different outcomes.
One drives and the other no longer exists.
Many other traditional industries have been disrupted in similar ways.
The movie rental industry, for example, has been disrupted with On-demand streaming
services.
Chemical film manufacturers have been disrupted with LCD sensors and smartphone
revolution.
Any business leader who considers cloud technology as not relevant to them or even
worse, as a threat to the way they've always done business, risks facing a fate similar to
that of encyclopedia companies.
Disruption or ceasing to exist entirely.
Imagine the impact the slow decline of a business has on its workforce.
Many jobs are lost and the remaining workforce is not skilled or able to manage the
demands of the new world.
The downstream impacts are significant too.
Vendors and partners could face a sharp decline in revenue due to loss of business.
Now, the good news is, the Cloud is still very new for many businesses.
Wherever business is in the Cloud adoption journey, there's still time to catch up.
The key point is that now is the time for organizations to accelerate their digital
transformation and shift the way they think about their business potential.
In the next video, I'll cover what becomes possible when you start to embrace Cloud
Technology for your business.

A paradigm shift

Saman: The adoption of Cloud technology is not just about survival, it's about thriving in a
new technological era.
The business benefits of truly embracing a digital transformation using Cloud technology
are significant.
Many organizations are already realizing the business benefits of secure and fast
application development and deployment.
They're seeing a shift in their costs from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, or
from CapEx to OpEx.
In many cases, they're saving costs and generating new value.
They're modernizing their infrastructure, solving business problems at a much faster
speed, and gaining insights from their data.
Like Nintendo, these visionary companies are leveraging new technological capabilities to
reshape their customers' lives across multiple industries.
When I say new technological capabilities, I'm referring to the ones that brought us
innovations like the self-driving car.
It has completely revolutionized the transportation industry once again, and the same is
true for smart assistants, which are already changing how we behave and how quickly and
easily we get things done.
Think about it, smart assistants let you use your voice and the natural way you speak to
get the information you need in milliseconds.
In some cases, you don't even need to prompt the assistant, it proactively makes the
suggestions for you.
For example, suppose you're driving and need to slow down or stop because of a traffic
jam.
The smart assistant built into your GPS, like Google Maps, automatically suggests an
alternate route and in just the right time so you can act accordingly, and there are many
more ways Cloud technology is changing our lives.
The Cloud's extraordinary compute capability is combined with large amounts of data to
create experiences we've never known before.
For example, the Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to everyday objects or devices that are
connected to the Internet and are able to send and receive data.
Smartphones, connected appliances, mobile sensors, and wearable devices are all IoT
examples.
The Internet of Things has become so present in our everyday life that we don't go online
anymore, we live online, and while doing so we receive and generate vast quantities of
data at every moment.
This was already true with the invention of the radio or the television, but the scale and the
speed at which we share data has tremendously increased, and our ability to compute that
data has followed an exponential curve known as Moore's Law.
The result is that, today we can build highly accurate statistical models to predict complex
behaviors and use that information to anticipate intent.
This is the most profound aspect of the Cloud revolution.
In addition to its predictive capabilities, the Cloud delivers high-performance analytics and
enables businesses to reduce equipment downtime, achieve more accurate supply
planning and maintain leaner operational organizations that have more efficient systems
and less waste.
The power of Cloud also changes the way we work by automating processes and creating
open and real-time collaboration opportunities between people globally.
This includes business stakeholders, customers, students, and constituents.
In all of the examples I mentioned so far, there are two common ingredients; compute
power and data.
Not just any compute power or a few files containing data, but extraordinary compute
power and very, very large volumes of data.
I'll explain what I mean by compute power and volumes of data in the next two videos.

Extraordinary compute power

Saman: Computing at its most basic is any task that requires a calculation.
In the context of Cloud, computing is the ability to process information, to store, retrieve,
compare and analyze it, and automate tasks most often done by a computer program.
Compute power, therefore, refers to the speed at which a computer is able to process
data.
In the beginning, giant computers owned by institutions filled entire rooms and took a long
time to process small amounts of data.
But two recent changes dramatically affected the computing landscape.
The first change brought computers from institutions to individuals and exponential growth
trajectory that doubled computing power every other year.
This was only the beginning.
Moore's Law has been disrupted twice by radical new designs in chips.
The first disruption comes from processors that are specifically meant for this type of
application and which we call TPUs or tensor flow processing units.
According to Moore's Law, TPUs should be twice as powerful as the preceding processing
units, but they're not.
They are 50 times more powerful than traditional chips, and that's not all.
The second disruption comes from quantum computing, which is a hundred million times
more powerful.
To illustrate the full impact of the TPU on what organizations can now readily do, I'll use a
machine learning example.
First and simply put, machine learning is a way of training a computer to automatically do
something using lots of data.
A machine learning model that would require a day of training with traditional processors
only requires half an hour of training with TPUs.
Another machine learning model that would require thousands of years of training with
traditional processors would now require only a few seconds with quantum computing.
There is a constraint attached to this evolution, though.
Right now, the cooling requirements for these new processors can only be met in large
industrial environments.
TPUs need to be cooled with pressurized water within the chip, while quantum computing
requires absolute zero temperatures to operate.
Cloud data centers are the only environment where we can create these conditions at
scale.
For the foreseeable future, they'll be the only option to tap into this vast amount of
computing power.
Think about electricity, in the first years after its discovery, most users had generators
located where they lived or worked.
As the industry became more mature, we created power plants that we access through a
grid.
The same principle applies today to computing.
It will mainly be generated in plants, which are the data centers and access to a grid,
which is the Internet.
This brings us to the second ingredient common in the examples I covered earlier in this
video, data, specifically, lots and lots of it.
Check out the next video to learn more.

Data as currency

Saman: Why is data needed to unlock the capabilities of Cloud?

Traditional computing is about taking a piece of information and input through an algorithm
in order to get an output.
This can be a very tedious process.
It requires someone to teach a computer what to do one step at a time.
Sure, it can follow those steps faster than any human, but it can only do what humans
have programmed it to do and nothing more.
Traditional computing, therefore, follows a static process.
With Cloud computing, things change.
You can provide both the input and output data side by side and generate a trained
algorithm.
This means it uses a combination of existing input and output data to learn the correct
outcome when faced with information it hasn't encountered before.
It is therefore self-learning.
For instance, in an image-recognition application such as Google Photos, you can provide
your photos, the input, and the correct identifier of the friend or family member in the
photo, so the output.
Then you can train the image-recognition algorithm embedded in the app to automatically
recognize and categorize new photos of your family members or friends even if their
appearance goes through significant changes over time.
That's the case, for instance, of a baby that grows to become a child and then eventually
an adult.
The app will still be able to identify the person in any new photo at every stage of their
development.
Another example of combining compute power and data to create new user experiences
can be seen in social media apps.
From personalizing your news feed to better-targeted advertising, social media platforms
use machine learning to learn about user preferences and intent.
This can be used to recommend people you may know for example.
The embedded ML algorithm is learning from the profiles that you visit often, your
interests, locations you tag in photos, your searches, or a group that you share with
someone.
It then compiles a recommended list of people you may want to become friends with or to
follow using this information.
The accuracy and performance of the algorithm is also based on the millions of users that
the algorithm is constantly learning from.
We'll talk more about the possible applications of machine learning in the Innervating With
Data and Google Cloud course and the role that ML plays in digital transformation.
For now, move on to the next module to continue with this course.

Quiz

1.
What does ‘compute power’ refer to? Select the correct answer.
The size of computer hardware.
The storage capabilities of the computer’s hardware.
The speed at which a computer is able to process data.
The length of time during which a computer is able to store data.

2.
When an organization takes advantage of cloud technology to redesign and redefine
relationships with its customers, employees, and partners, what is the result? Select the
correct answer.

The “burning platform” effect

Greater collaboration and productivity between users
Data storage space becomes available on-demand
Company-wide digital transformation

3.
Tensorflow Processing Units (TPUs) are _________ times more powerful than traditional
chips. Select the correct answer to fill in the blank.

75
120
100
50

4.
What is uniquely common between all inventions that have fueled innovation waves?
Select the correct answer.

They have transformed global travel networks

They have transformed the way we communicate
They have transformed the supply and demand at the same time
They have transformed our leisure time activities

5.
Which of these businesses failed to adapt as breakthrough technology became available?
Select the two correct answers.
 Apparel retail stores
Video game designers
Video rental stores
Music playing devices
Encyclopedia companies

Module 2: Digital Transformation with Google Cloud

Businesses might be at different stages in their digital transformation journey. Google Cloud
has identified common opportunities and challenges that necessitate the use of cloud
technology. Similarly, Google Cloud offers solutions categorized according to these
challenges and opportunities. All of that is covered in this module.

Introduction

Saman: As access to Cloud computing resources has become more globally accessible
and available, early adopters have been able to leverage it to create new business value.
As a result, customer expectations around the world have dramatically changed.
Customers now expect relevant and easily accessible content and information almost
instantly.
They also expect services that are always running and available anywhere in the world.
No matter who your customer is, the new Cloud paradigm requires your organization to
operate in new ways to meet these ever evolving and increasingly personalized
expectations.
In this module, we'll explore the business and technical considerations that organizations
need to think about as they embrace the Cloud.
Specifically, I'll begin by discussing how organizations need to adapt their ways of working
to meet the needs of a global workforce and customer base.
Then I'll turn to traditional IT Infrastructure challenges and how businesses should think
about modernization.
Then I'll explore what company wide applications are, and how have they been built
historically.
I'll also touch on considerations for developing and updating applications quickly, securely,
and at scale.
After that, I'll discuss the importance of data.
This includes the inevitable challenges that organizations face in capturing, storing, and
leveraging their data to gain business insights and make data driven decisions.
Then I'll examine vital security considerations that must be built into an organization called
Adoption Journey.
Finally, I'll give an overview of Google Cloud Solutions for digital transformation.
Let's get started.

Enhancing productivity and collaboration

Saman: One major challenge that organizations may face as they embrace the Cloud is
changing the way they work.
This is important for two reasons.
First, because as consumer expectations change, business models must adapt to remain
relevant.
Second, the traditional advantages of size and scale, are no longer as differentiating as
they used to be.
Let me explain.
Traditionally, large companies with big budgets were able to operate at scale, giving them
major competitive advantage.
They had the required capital to set up, maintain, and even expand their IT infrastructures,
giving their employees access to the latest tools to do their jobs.
However, the universal availability of Cloud Technology gives large and small companies
equal opportunity for success.
In fact, in many cases, by leveraging Cloud technology to serve customers in radically new
ways, small businesses have been able to disrupt industries where large scale
organizations have historically owned much of the market.
Organizations now need to be innovative, agile, quick to market, and highly customer-
focused.
In other words, they have to change the way they work to adapt to these new business
imperatives.
At Google, we believe that focusing on innovation, productivity, and collaboration, are vital
to an organization's ability to make this change.
Innovation is about doing something in a surprising new way.
There are many ways to encourage innovation and increase collaboration and productivity.
At Google, we believe you can achieve these through company culture, and technology.
Let me explain.
The culture of an organization has a direct impact on employee's willingness to innovate.
Innovation relies on people being able to try things and failing without judgment.
It also depends on employees having access to the information they need to develop
fresh, realistic ideas.
How teams are structured, how content is managed, and how communication flows across
an organization, are all elements that significantly affect innovation.
Next, equipping people with the tools they need to succeed is also an important part of
enabling innovation, and increased productivity and collaboration.
We'll learn more about some of these tools and their impact on collaboration and
productivity in upcoming videos.

Modernizing IT infrastructure

Saman: We've looked at how organizations need to change the way they work to thrive in
the Cloud and meet customers where they are.
Another challenge is to transform the IT backbone with which the organization runs.
This is especially challenging for large enterprises that have deeply entrenched and
complex systems, hardware and processes that need to change.
There are three core focus areas for modernization; infrastructure, business platforms, and
applications.
Let's look at each of these one by one.
Infrastructure modernization is a common term used to describe the process of replacing
legacy hardware and systems and consolidating them in the Cloud.
This often poses many challenges for organizations from defining new governance policies
through to ensuring that security systems are in place.
In addition, business critical applications are often running on existing on-premises
infrastructure, so transitioning them to the Cloud can be a big change.
An added complexity is that most organizations want to operate a hybrid model.
This means operating across multiple public Cloud providers or a mixture of private on-
premises and public Cloud solutions.
Integrating systems and information across multiple environments is complicated.
But when an organization has embraced the process of modernization, the opportunities
for business transformation are huge.
Let's look at a couple of examples.
Businesses can take advantage of high performance computing in a cost-effective and
scalable way.
Traditional IT required significant upfront expenditure to ensure that the hardware was in
place for the just in case moments such as peaks in demand.
With cloud computing, businesses can scale in the Cloud and pay for what they use when
they use it.
This has significant implications for how an organization thinks about operations and IT
budgets.
Another example of modernization is Virtual Desktops.
Recently, the global pandemic has radically impacted how teams work together.
With the rapid shift to work from home, companies are confronted with a challenge of
balancing security and IT resources with the demands for working from home.
Virtual desktops are pre-configured images of operating systems and applications.
This means that accessing the operating system doesn't rely on the physical device
running on the operating system.
Instead, users can access the virtual desktops remotely using any endpoint device, such
as a laptop, a smartphone, or a tablet.
This enables secure and scalable access to corporate resources.
Cost reductions and virtual desktops are just two examples of what businesses can do
when they embrace Cloud technology and modernize their infrastructure.
But infrastructure modernization is only the start.
Another key area for modernization is business platforms, which I'll cover next.

Modernizing business platforms and applications

Saman: In the last video, we covered the first focus area for modernization.
Let's now look at the next two.
Business application platforms are essentially about enabling integration between systems
and granting users the correct access privileges in an organization and beyond.
For example, suppose a company uses a third party platform for managing parts of
customer data, customers who have purchased a premium support package should be
prioritized by the partner in that region, application processing interfaces, commonly
known as APIs are technical tools that enable integration between applications.
In this case, the company uses an API to integrate their partner portal application with the
customer information platform.
They configure it so that the partner can only access certain information and other
information remains protected.
We'll talk about business application platforms in a later module.
Now, let's look at application modernization.
The term application is widely used to refer to programs and software that enable people
to preform various digital tasks.
Apps on smartphones are one example.
Another example is the software you use to create documents, spreadsheets and
presentations.
Today's customers expect instant access to services wherever they are.
An organization's ability to develop and launch applications is central to their success in
today's competitive market.
But organizations must embrace the importance of speed and innovation without
compromising security.
One way to realize this is through developer operations or DevOps.
DevOps is a set of practices that aim to increase software delivery velocity, improve
service reliability, and build shared ownership among software stakeholders.
We explore application modernization, including DevOps and a lot more detail in another
course, understanding Google cloud security and operations.
Let's now look at how organizations can leverage data to enable digital transformation.

Unlocking the value of data

Saman: Leveraging data relies on being able to capture, store, and structure it in such a
way that you can make informed business decisions with it.
Data is no longer only about retrospective insight, it also includes real time insight, smart
predictions, and intelligent action.
Imagine you're working in a traditional large enterprise.
Lots of offices around the world, tons of documents, spreadsheets, and files, varying
platforms and applications, assets and materials in various languages, and a global
customer base, the wealth of available data is enormous.
Some data, like financial data, is easy to capture because it already lives in spreadsheets.
Other data is harder to capture, like content that is spread across PDF and forms or social
data.
How your customers engage with you across social media platforms, for example.
Another challenge is storage and data management.
After you've captured data, how do you store it in such a way that you can gain insights
from it?
With the right platform, organizations can generate instant insights from data at any scale.
Instead of analyzing data for retrospective insight, you can leverage data in real time to
continually improve your service.
For example, organizations can use stream analytics tools to instantly capture consumer
behavior on their website and respond in a more targeted way in real time.
When an organization has captured data and has systems in place to continue capturing it
at scale, the possibilities are endless.
With machine learning and artificial intelligence, or ML and AI, you can generate insights
from data both past and present, and you can also perceive, predict, recommend, and
categorize data in new ways.
For example, ML enables large equipment manufacturers to schedule predictive
maintenance with greater accuracy, leading to less downtime and increased productivity.
Online retailers who use smart analytics tools can ingest real time behavior data while also
leveraging ML to surface the best suggestions for particular users.
With every click that the user makes, their website experience becomes more and more
personalized.
ML and AI are leading to significant advancements in medicine as models trained to
analyze images can identify various abnormalities to a high degree of accuracy.
These are just a few examples.
We'll explore many more in upcoming modules, along with the security, privacy,
compliance, and ethical implications of leveraging data.

Using a new built-in security model

Saman: One aspect of digital transformation that permeates all others is security.
Security in the Cloud requires new ways of thinking.
Traditionally, IT security models focused on keeping threats out.
They built an on-premises perimeter that individuals required access to in order to gain
entry.
That model works when all hardware and systems were controlled and managed centrally
and employees came into the office to do their work.
Now, employees want to create, share, and access information virtually.
In an increasingly global workforce, businesses need to grant access to applications and
relevant data with a high degree of security.
Businesses can now do this with security built in when moving some or all of their data and
infrastructure to the Cloud.
In the Cloud, the best practice for security is called a Shared Responsibility Security
Model.
In this model, the Cloud provider is responsible for the physical infrastructure like the
undersea cables, data centers, the personnel to manage the hardware and software, and
businesses are responsible for controlling data and resource access.
This means that businesses need to think carefully about appropriate governance and
policies for granting and restricting access to information and applications.
Compliance with regional regulations is also part of security and governance.
These regulations govern where data is stored and how it's managed.
Security in the Cloud is multifaceted and complex, and we'll cover it in a lot more detail in
another course, Understanding Google Cloud Security and Operations.
These are just a few of the security concerns that any organization must take into account
as they undergo digital transformation.
Up to this point in the module, we examined key business and technical challenges that
organizations face as they undergo digital transformation.
These challenges include culture change to encourage innovation, updating IT
infrastructure, modernizing business platforms and applications, and capturing, storing,
and leveraging data, and finally adopting a built-In security model.
These challenges are complex, and in many cases, mission-critical for businesses to
overcome in the Cloud era.
In the next video, I'll cover how Google Cloud Solutions can help companies address
these challenges.

Google Cloud solutions for digital transformation

Saman: Google serves over one billion users worldwide across search, Gmail and other
applications.
Google takes what it has learned from serving billions of users and creates Google Cloud
products and solutions available to organizations around the world.
Now customers can build their own applications and manage their own workloads on the
same infrastructure that Google Cloud runs to achieve their mission and serve their users.
We've grouped the products and services into solution pillars to match many organizations
transformation journey.
In fact, these groupings are based on how different types of customers have already used
and benefited from Google Cloud solutions.
The solution pillars are infrastructure modernization, business applications platform
portfolio, application modernization, database and storage solutions, smart analytics,
artificial intelligence, and security.
A common first step for digital transformation is moving parts of a traditional IT
infrastructure to the Cloud.
The goal would be to make modifications with minimal impact to end users or customers,
learn from the updates iteratively and ultimately meet the demands of the Cloud era.
Google Cloud and its partners offer flexible infrastructure modernization approaches from
re-hosting customer's existing IT to re-platforming.
This means using new platforms and applications to enhance what you can do.
When organizations have moved some or all of their workloads to Google Cloud, they can
then leverage the innovation built into Google Cloud technology to create new business
value.
We cover more details about the specific products and services in another course, the
value of infrastructure and application modernization with Google Cloud.
Now another challenge businesses face is modernizing their business platforms to enable
better information flows and more secure access to systems and applications.
With Google Cloud Business Application platforms portfolio, organizations can securely
unlock their data with APIs, automating processes and creating applications across Clouds
and on premises without coding.
Tools in this pillar, such as Apache, API Management and Cloud Endpoints, build and
automate business workflows while migrating and modernizing apps as they move to the
Cloud or between Clouds.
Businesses can better serve their users through application modernization.
The tools within this pillar help businesses develop and run applications anywhere.
Businesses can both modernize legacy apps and build new ones, which helps them
achieve higher return on investment and innovate faster.
Let's look at data and digital transformation.
Google Cloud database and storage solutions include tools that help businesses migrate
and manage enterprise data with security, reliability, high availability, and fully managed
data services.
Examples include Cloud Spanner, Cloud SQL, and Fire store.
The smart analytics portfolio helps businesses generate instant insights from data at any
scale with a serverless fully managed analytics platform.
BigQuery is an industry leading example of a serverless data warehouse solution.
Looker is a business intelligence platform that provides a unified service to access the
truest, most up to date version of your company's data.
We cover more on these and other tools in another course, innovating with data and
Google Cloud.
Google Cloud, artificial intelligence tools are built to enhance innovation and improve
productivity by integrating seamlessly into a company's existing workflow and products.
Google Cloud's comprehensive security solutions cover all aspects of protecting your
business in this digital era.
In fact, businesses can detect, investigate, and protect themselves against online threats
before attacks result in damage or loss.
These solutions also reduce the time it takes to identify threats.
It might be difficult to determine what solutions you need and how to prioritize your cloud
adoption challenges.
To help organizations optimize their cloud adoption Google Cloud has developed the
Google Cloud Adoption Framework.
This best practice guide provides a framework to assess where an organization is in its
journey and what it should do next.
Refer to the linked reading or the direct link to the website for more details.
Cloud.google.com/adoption-framework.
Now throughout this module, I covered the business and technical challenges and the
solutions that enabled digital transformation.
In the next module I will look at the role that culture plays in overcoming these business
and technical challenges.
In particular, all examine how organizations can foster and scale an innovation mindset to
create fresh breakthrough experiences for customers.

Google Cloud Adoption Framework (GCAF)

https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/course_sessions/794879/documents/103487

- Four themes
- Three phases
- Maturity scala: Learn, Lead, Scale, Secure

Quiz

1.
Customers now expect instant access to services anytime, anywhere. What do businesses
need to prioritize to meet these changing needs? Select the correct answer.

Launching new applications quickly

Localizing existing applications
Updating hardware systematically
Streamlining existing hardware

2.
Organizations have traditionally used retrospective data to gain business insights. By
using cloud technology, in what new way can businesses leverage data? Select the
correct answer.

Businesses can now analyze user data

Businesses can unlock retrospective insights
Businesses can now evaluate corporate data
 Businesses can gain real-time insights

3.
In the cloud, the recommended practice for security is called a ‘shared responsibility
security model'. What does this mean? Select the two correct answers.

The business is responsible for the physical infrastructure.

The business is responsible for access to data and applications.
The cloud provider is responsible for the physical infrastructure.
The cloud provider is responsible for access to information and applications.
The cloud provider and the business are both responsible for the physical infrastructure.

4.
Infrastructure modernization is foundational to an organization's digital transformation. It is
a common term used to describe what process? Select the correct answer.
Updating productivity software and implementing new governance practices
Leveraging hidden value from legacy systems and applications with cloud technologies
Replacing legacy hardware and systems and consolidating them on-premises
Updating productivity software and implementing cloud collaboration

5.
What factors have a direct impact on a team’s ability to innovate? Select the two correct
answers.

Tools and technology

Team structure
Ability to try new things without fear of failure or judgement
Job satisfaction
Ability to delegate tasks to cross functional teams

Module 3: Scaling the innovation mindset

Cloud is not just about a technological transformation; it requires transforming the way we
work, too. This module begins with an overview of six focus areas for an organizational
transformation and then hones in on the sixth: innovation. It looks specifically at how to
organically create and scale innovation through culture and business practices. It offers key
principles, drawing examples from Google’s success and a real world scenarios, that you
can apply in your day-to-day operations.

Introduction

Saman: Hi, there.

Saman here again from Google Cloud.
In the last module, we explored business and technical challenges that organizations face
on their Cloud adoption journey.
In this module, we'll look at a third challenge, culture change.
At Google, we believe an organization's culture plays a key role in their ability to embrace
change and adapt with new technologies.
In this module, I'll start by exploring six focus areas that Google thinks are vital to
transforming culture with an emphasis on culture of innovation.
Next, I'll explore three simple rules that help organizations scale the innovation mindset.
Then I'll apply the three rules in a real-world example from the banking industry.
Finally, I'll cover some questions to help you reframe the way you approach your work and
how you can adopt an innovative mindset.
Now, regardless of the position you're in, you can use these questions to help you identify
innovative opportunities with the Cloud.
Let's get started.

Focus areas for culture transformation

Saman: When you see Cloud as a tool to do things the way you've always done them, you
risk vanishing into irrelevance.
Using Cloud to do new transformative things means embracing wholesale change.
This change may involve radically rethinking business practices, structures, and even
business models so you can better serve your customers globally.
Since forming in 1998, Google has grown from a few guys in a garage to an international
organization with over 100,000 employees worldwide.
Along the way, we've done a lot of thinking about how to maintain an innovation mindset,
the same mindset that enabled Google's founders to build the Google search engine in the
first place.
We've also spent a lot of time helping other companies embrace and nurture an innovation
mindset and learn from their experiences too.
We've categorized the learnings by six focus areas that contribute to the successful culture
transformation.
They are foundational to creating a fast moving, customer-centric and future-proof
business that optimizes its use of Cloud technology.
These focus areas are talent, environment, structure, strategy, empowerment, and
innovation.
We need an entirely separate course to cover the details of each focus area.
For this course, I'm going to briefly present each area before focusing on innovation and
how it relates to digital transformation.
Talent refers to a holistic view of the people that make up an organization and contribute
to innovation.
It covers the entire life cycle from attracting, to hiring, to nurturing, to retaining, to
celebrating, and growing the talent.
The ability of people to thrive in an organization, especially during major changes, is
connected to the work environment.
Environment, our next focus area, means more than just a workspace.
Every program, every perk or service should be designed to enable a culture of innovation
and efficiency and ultimately lead to job satisfaction and overall well-being.
That brings me to the next focus area, structure.
Structure is a blueprint for how certain programs and tasks are grouped and how people
managing them are led toward a common goal.
Essentially, structure is how a business organizes itself.
For example, how an organization establishes its hierarchy and management levels, and
forms teams, and how people access information are all part of an organization structure.
Strategy is how you align people to your organization's purpose or mission.
It is the direction you set, how you measure progress, and how you adapt to new
information to achieve your vision.
Next is empowerment.
Empowerment means enabling employees by giving them access to relevant information
and encouraging them to use it to take initiative to solve problems and improve the
business.
Certain degrees of autonomy, independence, and responsibility can increase motivation,
which is central to creating a culture of innovation.
Lastly, innovation is central to embracing new technology.
So let's look at this in more detail.
Innovation, at its core, is about doing something in a surprising new way or discovering
something entirely new that adds value.
Whether you're rethinking an existing process or creating a totally new product, innovation
involves creativity and ingenuity.
Creating a culture where people can innovate is foundational to embracing meaningful
change, adapting to and optimizing new technologies, and most critically, maintaining a
competitive advantage in a fast moving world.
However, innovation can't be owned or ordained, but you can create the environment and
the right conditions for innovation to evolve organically.
The fuel for innovation is a balance between freedom and constraint.
At Google, we strive to give employees the right amount of creative freedom and
psychological safety so innovative ideas can scale.
Google typically follows three rules to foster and scale a culture of innovation.
We'll cover these in the next video.

Scale the innovation mindset

Saman: In the previous video, I mentioned that Google has established three simple rules
that govern its day to day business practice and help to nurture and skill a culture of
innovation.
They are; focus on the user or the customer, think 10x or generate big ideas, and finally
launch and iterate, which is often referred to as continuous learning.
These principles weren't created by Google.
Every company focuses on their customers.
Every company expects its employees to be bold and to generate big ideas.
Where Google differs, however, is in the way it implements these principles to scale the
innovation mindset.
We'll look at each one by one.
Let's start with focus on the user.
Focus on the user as a business practice may sound common.
How often have you heard customer-first?
But for us at Google, this focus has two dimensions.
First, users aren't limited to paying customers or people outside our business.
Our employees are also our users.
Next is user expectation.
You need to clearly understand user expectation to think about how you can add value for
them.
This is because with the digital age, everyone has become connected globally via multiple
devices.
Everyone has acquired the same expectations when engaging with companies.
Here's an example of what I mean by focusing on your customers and their expectations.
When airlines first started offering WiFi on-board their planes, it seemed new and
revolutionary and it differentiated in airline companies offering.
Now, it's expected.
Notice that as soon as your customers become exposed to something new that makes
their lives easier, it doesn't take long for it to become an expectation.
User expectation, though, can mean a variety of things.
To help you narrow down the scope of users expectations, consider the following focus
areas; access, engagement, customization, and communication.
For each focus area, ask yourself, what is the user or customer expect.
By answering the question, you'll make important discoveries about where to invest your
efforts.
Let me give you a few examples.
When it comes to access, users expect faster and easier services with always on
capabilities that can be accessed anywhere.
In terms of engagement, users are looking for sources of valued content.
They expect up-to-date reliable content from multiple fields of expertise.
From this, you can then learn that engaging multiple fields of expertise in the process of
product development is also crucial for your business success.
Next, when it comes to customization, users expect that a product or service seamlessly
adapts to their individual needs and preferences.
Finally, users expect to be able to communicate with service providers through a two-way
feedback channel.
This means that the company also engages in conversation.
The same is true for your employees.
When assessing what they expect when it comes to communication, you'll discover that
they expect their contributions to matter and that their input has a positive impact on the
evolution of a product or the company.
To meet their expectations, two-way dialogue is needed between teams and between
employees and their leadership.
Take a moment to think, who is your user?
With innovation in mind, is there room to drastically improve or reinvent your products or
services by examining your user's expectations?
Now, at first, this level of focus on the user might seem like a bad business decision.
What about ensuring that the business is making a profit?
Believe it or not, there is a different way to look at the problem.
I'll give you an example.
One of Google's primary business models is built around ad sales.
In the past, when users went to Google's site to search for information, they would see
company bought ad space on either side of the search window.
By applying the first rule, focus on the user, Google decided to update its user interface
design.
This involved removing the ads and showing more information for some search results in
order to provide a better user experience.
At the time, 87 percent of Google's revenue came from ad space sales.
This might have seemed like an irresponsible decision.
But Google focused on the user and made the changes anyway because its mission isn't
to sell ad space but to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible
and useful.
Coupled with the capabilities of the Cloud, Google actually discovered that an
improvement in the user experience didn't negatively affect its revenues.
In fact, users have more insight now than they ever did before when they type in just a few
letters.
Let me give you an example.
Last Sunday, I was deciding between pasta and sushi for dinner.
I can make pasta, but not sushi, and I was really craving sushi.
At 8:40 PM, I used Google Search and typed in fuki, the name of a local sushi restaurant.
I didn't type the word sushi because geolocation knows I live in Palo Alto and so the
search retrieves fuki sushi in Palo Alto.
Immediately, I have a tremendous amount of information.
Photos of the restaurant and the restaurant's hours.
I see its location on maps, which shows how long it will take to get there.
I see in orange font that the restaurant closes soon.
A bar chart generated via Google Map's aggregated user data indicates how busy the
restaurant is and tells me that the average wait time is 30 minutes.
At the time of my search, it was 8:40 PM and the restaurant closed at 9:00.
So I knew I wasn't going to get sushi.
This is amazing.
I type in four letters into the Google search bar, and within moments, I know I'm cooking
pasta.
Users find this functionality useful so they keep coming back.
Eliminating ads for some searches and using sponsored links instead turned out to be very
profitable for Google.
Focusing on the user can help any organization leverage new technologies as they
undergo a digital transformation.
Focus on the user is good practice to help you remember what ultimately matters most,
achieving your mission, why you exist, not how you operate.
Let's move on to the next rule, think 10x.

Think 10X

Saman: 10x thinking is about generating big ideas.

It's about transformation over improvement and using technology to achieve that
transformation.
Improvement projects help make things better by perhaps 10 percent, and there certainly
is room for improvement projects in every organization.
But they will not help you scale the innovation mindset.
One great example of a 10x thinker was Henry Ford, an early innovator who brought the
automobile to mass market in America.
He said, "If you would ask people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
'' Imagine how long it would have taken for the world to experience motor vehicles if
everyone thought to only improve what they already had.
This is the 10 percent mindset.
Let's look at a Google example.
In 2008, Google didn't have a presence in Lahore, Pakistan, which meant that a map
shown on Google Maps was very limited.
Improvement thinking would have led Google to make only 10 percent additions to the
map content over time.
But instead, Google followed the 10x principle and reframed the problem.
How can we use technology to improve the information gaps in our map 10 times faster?
By setting this challenge, Google was able to create a software program called Map Maker
that asked its users to map their environment, empowering the user to provide Google with
the missing data.
The University of Lahore then launched a contest for students to map their journey from
home to school using Map Maker.
In just two years, with the support of users, Google was able to create a highly accurate
map of Lahore.
This data became vital in 2010 when there were terrible floods, four million people had to
be relocated.
A post-flood study found that 400,000 lives would have been lost without access to maps
and the work of those students.
Now, just imagine how long it would have taken to build an accurate map if we had applied
the 10 percent thinking.
Would it have even been possible?
10x thinking leads to solutions that are simple, empowering, and deeply transformative.
Just like focusing on the user, thinking 10x helps organizations achieve their mission in
new ways and differentiate their offerings from competitors.
Move on to the next video to learn about the third rule.
Launch and iterate

Saman: Everything you've learned so far comes together with the final rule, launch and
iterate, which is often referred to as continuous learning.
This is a break and burn and fail fast idea that you want to encourage in your company
culture.
It gives your employees the freedom to innovate and enables them to apply 10x thinking.
What does it mean to launch and iterate?
Launch and iterate is both a mindset and a practice where instead of starting off with a
perfect solution, you figure it out through experimentation.
Launch and iterate says, ''Try, learn from the output, and then try again.'' You can apply
the launch and iterate rule to your own work by asking yourself, does my project or
initiative support my why?
Am I applying 10x thinking?
How am I to use technology to reframe the problem or find a transformative solution
instead of minor improvements?
When you have the answers, start experimenting and building.
Seek feedback quickly, and you might fail the first time, but if you do fail fast, instead of
wasting your time, perfecting your idea.
Why?
Because in failure, you learn quickly.
This is the process of innovation.
There's one caveat to this rule.
For everyone to launch and iterate freely, it's important to create a culture of psychological
safety.
Organizational Behavioral Scientist Amy Edmondson of Harvard first introduced the
concept of team psychological safety.
She defined it as a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for
interpersonal risk taking.
There's a strong correlation between innovative teams and high psychological safety rates;
teammates feel safe to ask questions, take risks, challenge each other and build on each
other's ideas.
They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for
admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.
When people feel psychologically safe and begin applying the launch and iterate rule into
their day-to-day work, the result is the prototyping effect.
The more ideas you try, the more you learn, and the more you'll eventually succeed.
Continuous learning and the ability to adapt based on that learning is critical as you adopt
cloud technology for your organization.
One high-profile example of this is Google Glass.
This image demonstrates the evolution of Google Glass.
The brainstorming discussion probably began with someone asking, ''If we can get
information to people at their fingertips with a smartphone, how might we enable them to
retrieve or receive information hands-free?'' From this, the prototype of the digital glasses
emerged.
It went through six iterations before reaching its most recent version.
Very early, it became apparent that there were barriers to adoption for the mass market,
cost being one of them.
Another was social expectation, people felt awkward walking around with them.
But Google employees maintain their innovation mindset and their ongoing curiosity, which
led to an interesting discovery.
Although the mass market wasn't ready for Google Glass, which was an apparent failure
at the time, there was significant enterprise demand for it.
Imagine you were a surgeon or handler in a warehouse or a repair mechanic for large
industrial equipment, hands-free access to information that helps you do your job better is
highly valuable, and in those cases, the cost is less of an obstacle.
In July 2017, Google launched the new enterprise edition of Google Glass.
The initial plan to create and mass market digital glasses did not succeed, but teams
learned from each iteration evolving and adapting at each stage and responding to
customer user feedback, which led to new successes.
Remember, ideas don't have to be limited to hardware or service products.
This way of thinking can also be used for any employee-customer or employee and
employee interaction.
You might be thinking, ''Hey, Saman, that's all great, but I can't always apply these in my
organization.'' I agree.
Although these principles help to nurture a culture of innovation, they may not always be
applicable to every situation and every case.
Still, I want to challenge you to try and apply them even at a small scale.
I'll demonstrate this with an example from the banking industry next.

Innovation example: Banking industry

Saman: Let's look at what cultivating and scaling an innovation mindset might look like in a
real world situation.
This is Jane, a banker.
Part of her job involves cold calling customers and offering them a new service or product.
She knows, though, that customers are rarely receptive to these types of calls.
Jane's manager chooses a traditional approach and preassigns Jane a list of people to call
along with talking points to sell insurance.
What do you think is wrong with this approach?
Well, think about it this way, what's Jane's why in this scenario?
Is it to sell insurance?
No, that's a specific task, not a mission statement.
Does selling insurance meet the three simple rules for day-to-day business?
Is it focusing on the user?
No.
Is it 10x thinking?
No.
Is Jane, as an employee, empowered to innovate in this case?
Probably not.
So let's look at Jane's situation in a different way and apply the three rules.
What is her why?
It's to enable people to live their lives feeling financially secure and optimally prepared for
life's inherent ups and downs.
Now we have a why that's a purpose, a mission.
Next, we employ the first rule.
Focus on the user.
Imagine Fred is one of Jane's customers.
He has two young children and is the type of person to plan ahead.
He's starting to think about his kids' future and their education because he realizes it's
going to be very costly.
At the most basic level, Fred might need to know how much he needs to save and for how
many years so he has sufficient funding to send both kids off to college.
He might also expect that his financial institution can offer him personalized options to
achieve this without disruption to his lifestyle.
So Jane would focus her call with Fred on A, discovering his intent or needs, not the direct
selling of insurance, and B, helping Fred with investment options.
Now, how can Jane apply 10x thinking to our customer situation to find solutions that are
simple, empowering, and deeply transformative?
How can she anticipate Fred's needs and behavior so that she can propose solutions that
will help him live life to the fullest and ensure that he is financially prepared and secure for
this stage of his life?
Jane and her team can apply 10x thinking to create breakthrough experiences to serve a
customer with technology.
Now, ask yourself, how might the capabilities of the Cloud help Jane achieve this?
Well, imagine she has a dashboard that synthesizes multiple sources of data about Fred.
This would give Jane, A, insight about his current situation, B, information to help predict
his intent, and C, a list of pre-populated recommendations that she could discuss with
Fred.
The capabilities of the Cloud equipped Jane to have a much more focused and meaningful
conversation with Fred.
Now she can call Fred and say, "We think now would be a good time to talk about your
children and their future education. What are your thoughts on this and how are you
currently preparing?"
She might follow up with, "We have some personalized recommendations for you. One of
our experts is available to discuss your goals and investment options this week."
Imagine if everyone across Jane's organization embraced this innovation mindset and
employed Cloud technology to find innovative solutions.
It would be an important step in the organization's overall digital transformation.

Try it yourseft

Saman: Embracing cloud technology and cultivating an innovative mindset are not limited
to elite data scientists or company leaders.
You can cultivate this mindset in your role, in your team, and across your organization, no
matter where you are.
Grab a piece of paper and write down your answers to the following four questions.
First, what is your why?
Write down in one sentence, what your mission statement is, then take this one step
further and write down your team's mission and finally, your organization's mission.
Next, who is your user?
What are some ways you're focusing on their expectations and meeting those
expectations in your day-to-day activities?
When you know who your users are, ask yourself, how might I use new technology to
serve them 10 times better?
Finally, what would it take to launch your first idea?
How much time do you spend perfecting an idea before sharing a first draft and iterating it
with feedback?
Are there ways you can launch and iterate more often?
Let's look at a sample set of answers to these questions with a recent use case.
Jorge is on the IT support team at a multi region enterprise.
His why is to ensure that all employees are able to do their best work with the right access
to the right digital tools.
This means that Jorge's users are not the direct customer, instead they are the employees
who work in the company.
They expect to be able to easily connect with the support team at any given time, get a
resolution to their issues without disruption to their work, and provide feedback for
improved services.
When 2020 brought us dramatic changes across the world and forced many employees to
work remotely, Jorge needed to provide support at scale.
He needed a solution that was 10 times better than what he and his team used to do when
everyone could simply walk up to a support desk or file a ticket.
He mobilized a team of 10 and set up a site called TechShop that was accessible by
anyone logged into their corporate laptop.
They added several new services to enable employees to reach them and to resolve their
issues, including screen share via Google Meet.
As they gathered feedback from users, they were able to improve the resolution time.
In fact, based on the data collected about the most common issues, they were able to
implement a repeatable workflow that automatically resolved users issues up front upon
completing a digital questionnaire.
Let's look at another example.
Shreya is part of the logistics team for a retail company.
Her company embrace cloud technology and digital transformation, so they now serve
many customers via their online store.
She quickly shifted her own role from managing in-store inventory to coordinating fleet
management, including driver schedules, delivery, prioritization and overall efficiency.
Her why is to get customers what they need, when they need it.
Before the pandemic, Shreya met her customers' needs directly in the stores, and now she
caters to her customers across the country through large scale delivery.
Her users are, therefore, both the end customer and the drivers who are making this
mission possible.
As her team adapted their business model amid a pandemic that prompted the need for a
major technological shift to meet greater online demand from customers, Shreya relied
heavily on the launch and iterate principle to do her part.
She began identifying innovative opportunities by collecting data from the end-to-end
delivery process, from wait times, to loading the delivery trucks, to time and traffic, to
delivery.
Based on early data, she was able to find more efficient methods for loading boxes.
But that's not all, Shreya and her team compiled all of their data sources with cloud
technology to predict customer demand per specific day of the week.
This insight drastically improved her business operations overall.
Now, these are just two examples of how embracing the innovation mindset can unlock
digital transformation in any role.
Now it's your turn.
With these examples in mind, take some time to answer the questions for your role.
Up next, I'll summarize the key topics we covered in this course.

Quiz

1.
To help you narrow down the scope of your user’s expectations, which focus areas should
you consider? Select the correct answer.

Access, Engagement, Communication, Reliability

Integrity, Communication, Consistency, Engagement
Communication, Price, Availability, Accessibility
Access, Engagement, Customization, Communication

2.
Timothy owns and operates an organic food delivery service. Timothy must first define his
company’s mission. Which of the following mission statements best focuses on the WHY
and not the HOW, providing clear direction? Select the correct answer.

Deliver the freshest seasonal produce reliably

Connect farmers and consumers through fresh produce
Increase produce sales monthly
Increase delivery fleets using the Internet of Things (IoT)

3.
Which three business principles does Google recommend to ensure transformational
outcomes? Select the correct answer.

Focus on the user, think 10%, and freedom to innovate

Bias toward action, think 10X, launch and iterate
Focus on the user, think 10X, launch and iterate
Think 10X, perfect first, focus on the user

4.
Talent, Environment, and Empowerment are three focus areas that Google has identified
 as foundational to organizational transformation. What are the other three focus areas?
Select the correct answer.

Management, Strategy, Creativity

Structure, Strategy, Innovation
Structure, Tactics, Creativity
Management, Tactics, Innovation

5.
According to Google’s culture of innovation business principles, what does “Think 10X”
mean? Select the correct answer.

Fundamentally rethink business problems and solutions by a factor of 10.

Reserve 10 percent of all company resources or budget for innovation.
Explore solutions that would yield 10 percent improvements.
Make 10 changes that will positively impact the customer experience.

Summary

This module provides a summary of the key points covered in each module and next steps
you can take to continue your learning.

Saman: Congratulations for making it this far into the course.

We covered a lot.
So let's recap the key points.
Cloud technology allows businesses to combine powerful computer technology with vast
amounts of data to create new value.
As access to cloud computing resources has become more globally available, early
adopters have been able to leverage it to disrupt industries and redefine customer
experiences.
You learned that customers now expect fresh, relevant, and easily accessible content
almost instantly.
They also expect real time services that are always running and available from anywhere
in the world.
Every company now faces the decision to embrace Cloud and thrive or vanish into
irrelevance.
You learned that organizations face multiple business and technical challenges no matter
where they are in their digital transformation journey.
These key challenges are fostering innovation through culture change, updating IT
infrastructure, modernizing business platforms and applications, seamlessly capturing,
storing, and leveraging data for better decision making, and finally, adopting a built-in
security model.
You also learned about Google Cloud solution pillars such as business applications, data
storage, and smart analytics.
These give organizations structured pathways for overcoming these challenges and
creating new business value.
In addition to the technology, another focus area we covered in more detail was scaling an
innovation mindset through culture.
Now, we recognize that what you learned here is just the beginning.
We encourage you to continue to learn about unlocking the value of data by completing
the course, Innovating with Data and Google Cloud.
Find out more about the common pathways to digital transformation and fundamental
Google Cloud products you should know about in The Value of Infrastructure and
Application Modernization with Google Cloud.
And finally, take Understanding Google Cloud Security and Operations to learn even more
about cost management and monitoring in the Cloud.
Check out the Google Cloud training catalog at cloud.google.com/training.
And if you've signed up for the learning path, be sure to complete all four courses to get
credit.
And that's it for this course.
Now that you know the basics, you can continue your learning and begin exploring Cloud-
related initiatives in your organization and with your peers.