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August 16, 2022 - by Darren White
Making the most productive use of an organization’s digital resources is a vital ingredient for success in today’s ultra-competitive business landscape. Companies are challenged to extract the maximum value from their data assets when using exclusively in-house computing solutions.
This article will discuss cloud-based solutions and methods businesses can adopt to enhance their organization’s digital transformation. Failure to recognize and act on the potential benefits of these cloud technologies can leave a company struggling to keep up with more proactive market rivals.
Cloud computing offers many advantages to businesses of all sizes. These benefits can impact virtually every aspect of an organization’s IT environment and have a substantial effect on its bottom line. Following are some of the more important advantages a company can enjoy by implementing or augmenting its use of cloud computing resources.
Organizations may be reluctant to take advantage of cloud solutions when simply considering the upfront costs of the move. This is the wrong way to look at the financial advantages of cloud computing. Over time, the initial capital investment associated with migrating to the cloud will be repaid by a variety of cost-saving measures.
The ease with which a company’s data can be accessed when it resides in the cloud saves the organization time and money. Reliable cloud providers offer storage and functionality on a pay-as-you-go basis, ensuring that businesses are not charged for space or features they are not using.
One of the most compelling advantages of cloud computing is the flexibility it affords businesses. When engaged with a reputable cloud provider, a company can easily address an evolving business landscape by acquiring any resources necessary to meet its objectives. Businesses can obtain more storage, additional compute power, or increased bandwidth on-demand from their provider to immediately resolve their issues.
Keeping data secure and complying with regulatory standards are becoming increasingly important for companies across all market sectors. In many cases, in-house technical resources are insufficient to effectively address data security and regulatory compliance. Taking advantage of the expertise and cutting-edge technology available from cloud providers can immediately bolster a company’s position regarding security and compliance.
Cloud-based disaster recovery can help companies address the issue of business continuity. Organizations can use cloud resources as part of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan or opt for a complete disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) offering from a cloud provider. The expertise available from the provider and the flexibility to recover to any location are two of the main benefits of performing disaster recovery in the cloud.
Outdated software can be responsible for security flaws that result in sensitive corporate data resources being compromised. Ensuring that all software assets are patched and updated can put a strain on internal IT resources. Cloud vendors are responsible for updating the software they offer customers. This saves companies time and eliminates potential oversights made by in-house personnel.
Several aspects of cloud computing come together to provide customers with a substantial competitive advantage over rivals who ignore its potential. Increased internal collaboration afforded by cloud solutions enables companies to address new customer requirements promptly and efficiently. Cutting-edge technologies like big data analytics help uncover lucrative trends that can be acted upon before the competition even identifies them. As a proof point, a recent client case study on a building materials product manufacturer resulted in findings of a 30 percent spike in sales orders when resolving system issues with an SLA of 99.9 percent. This is just one example of how businesses can engage in digital transformation of their business by way of the cloud.
Companies can improve their stance on environmental sustainability by migrating some or all of their computing environment to the cloud. Hosting a computing environment in the cloud reduces a company’s carbon footprint and production of greenhouse gasses. Additionally, the virtualization employed by cloud vendors reduces the number of physical hardware components that need to be purchased and eventually thrown away.
Multiple trends should be considered by companies looking to migrate resources to the cloud. Following are some of the most impactful trends that promise to influence cloud computing over the next several years.
In a multi-cloud computing strategy, an organization uses two or more cloud platforms simultaneously to handle specific components of its IT environment. Spreading the environment among multiple platforms or solutions allows customers to get more value and select the most effective option from competing sources.
Multi-cloud implementations differ from hybrid clouds in their use of multiple public cloud offerings. A multi-cloud strategy can be implemented in several ways. In some cases, the offerings of more than one provider are used to meet business requirements. Another option deploys multiple IaaS or PaaS solutions from the same vendor.
The following benefits can be enjoyed by companies opting for a multi-cloud approach to their computing environment.
Experts believe, industries adopting digital transformation should be taking advantage of the following four specific cloud computing technologies:
While these are certainly not the only services offered by public providers, they are some of the most underutilized and impactful technologies available in the cloud. Businesses interested in digitally transforming their organization should investigate how cloud resources can best be used to address their objectives.
Developing an efficient multi-cloud strategy that makes effective use of the underutilized technologies previously discussed can be a difficult undertaking. Building a sub-optimal environment can wind up being more costly and less productive than envisioned by the organization. It makes sense to get help from experienced professionals when migrating resources to the cloud.
Organizations can work with a cloud vendor’s dedicated account representatives to obtain the most value from its offerings. In the absence of a focused account representative, several types of strategic partners can be engaged to provide guidance regarding best practices that should be followed when contracting cloud services.
These partners include consulting firms, managed service providers, and system integrators. The best results will be obtained when working with partners that have experience within a company’s market sector.
However, they go about it, organizations that want to be competitive need to take advantage of the possibilities of digital transformation offered by the public cloud. The alternative is to languish behind the competition and risk the company’s ability to thrive in the future.
Original Article posted on BetaNews, Inc.
Darren White is Practice Director, Cloud Advancement at Synoptek. In his 26 years of professional experience, Darren has worked within Health and Public Sector, Resources, Financial Services, CMT, Products, Oil and Gas focusing on digital and cloud transformation. He has planned, managed, and delivered complex, large-scale transformational change programs within multiple operating groups and has also advised numerous client teams on digital strategies, cloud transformation, and application migrations, offering development, GTM support, cost reduction recommendations, project management assistance, testing support, and technology Center of Excellence.
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