In our
technology-driven times, organizations that do not have an online presence
risks going obsolete or lose credibility. Going digital has become a necessity
for enterprises to remain viable, provide good customer experiences, and stay
up the competition curve. Since success is generally measured in terms of
customer experience, digital
transformation becomes a key business requirement. And among the many
proven technologies driving digital transformation and offering great customer
experiences subsequently is cloud computing. This technology enables
enterprises to have robust vision for the future, accelerate digital transformation
services, and provide better experiences to the customers.
Businesses have begun
to realize the inevitability and benefits of going the cloud way. In a technology-driven
world with growing competition, the focus is on garnering transformational
benefits rather than settling for the incremental ones. To achieve this,
businesses require to set up a robust technology infrastructure. However, for
any enterprise digital transformation
initiative, the focus should be on remaining flexible and embracing the
industry trends.
What is cloud
computing?
The process involves
the storage, maintenance, management, analytics, processing, and security of
data by leveraging a network of internet-based servers. It is in sharp contrast
to the data stored on a personal computer or a local server. The distributed
storage and management of data help enterprises to make more informed and
accurate decisions. Further, this helps them to improve productivity,
streamline processes, save costs, innovate, accelerate time to market, enhance
customer experiences, and achieve ROI.
Types of cloud
computing
The cloud consists of
three types of services viz., Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service
(IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). In SaaS, a third-party cloud provider
hosts software applications and delivers them on demand to customers over the
World Wide Web. Some examples of SaaS are Google Apps, Dropbox, Salesforce,
BigCommerce, MailChimp, Hubspot, and DocuSign, among others.
In PaaS, the
third-party provider delivers software and hardware tools, operating
environments, database, or computing platforms that are needed to develop
applications, over the internet. The examples include Windows Azure, Force.com,
Apache Stratos, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and Heroku, among others.
Similarly, in IaaS, a
third-party vendor offers access to computing resources viz., storage, data
centre space, security, scaling, network components, or servers, among others.
The examples include Linode, DigitalOcean, and Rackspace, among others.
How the cloud can play
a role in digital business transformation
To disrupt the status
quo and stay competitive, enterprises embrace digital transformation services wherein they need to upgrade their
legacy IT infrastructure. Also, to enable digital disruption, enterprises,
besides streamlining their business processes, need to leverage advanced
technologies. These include Augmented Reality, AI and ML, Big Data Analytics,
and the Internet of Things (IoT), among others. Since these technologies demand
heavy computer power and storage space, cloud computing comes as a savior. The
benefits to be accrued from cloud during the digital transformation
process are as follows:
Flexibility: To ensure the success of any digital transformation strategy, the
business processes of enterprises can be changed many times. The cloud allows
any organization to save costs by not investing in setting up and maintaining
costly IT resources in-house such as software or hardware. This way the
organization can remain flexible and agile as it can leverage cloud-based
resources based on its requirements. For example, if a project needs greater
computing and storage power, the organization can scale up its on-demand cloud
requirement by paying an extra amount. The reverse can also hold true leading
to the optimization of resources and cost savings.
Security: Any information stored in-house can be vulnerable
to situations like security breaches, unexpected system downtime, and natural
or man-made disasters. Since all data including backup are contained within a
singular IT system, any security-related issue can wipe it clean. On the other
hand, cloud hosting can maintain multiple backups of data in a distributed
system. So, even if one node gets affected, the data in other nodes can remain
unaffected. In cases of big data analysis where big chunks of data are
involved, any system failure or security breach can have devastating
consequences.
Quick prototyping: Any digital
transformation implementation entails continuous innovation, testing,
and delivery of products or services. This is where the cloud can help
enterprises with platforms to build, test, and deliver/deploy applications
bypassing the need for a complex IT architecture. So, if an enterprise builds
multiple products, then the cloud platform can allow quick prototyping of such
applications, saving cost and time in the process.
Seamless
collaboration: Implementing digital transformation solutions would
require every stakeholder in the organization to embrace a culture of
collaboration. This is congruous to the requirements of DevOps that aim at
breaking hierarchies or silos to achieve creativity, quality, innovation,
efficiency, and glitch-free delivery. With cloud computing, different teams can
work seamlessly in parallel to develop, test, and deliver applications. It
allows access to computing resources, anywhere and anytime. Also, the optimal
delegation of authority can be assured by controlling the level of user
authority.
Cost-effective: Cloud services are highly flexible to user
requirements. They offer a scalable model wherein enterprises only pay for
services that have been used. Thus, there is no need to set up and maintain a
costly IT infrastructure (hardware and software) thereby saving CapEx in the
process.
Conclusion
The need to enable digital transformation has become
imperative given the cost of setting up and maintaining a robust and
functioning IT infrastructure. As business processes become agile with the
inclusion of new technologies and the need to uphold greater user experiences,
migrating to the cloud environment becomes a necessity. It helps enterprises to
bypass the challenges of legacy systems and build-test-deliver quality software
applications consistently.
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