It is amazing how technology had made life simpler, its impact on daily living cannot be denied, and a lot of these impacts has been positive. We get to see technology and gadgets that we only saw in Bond movies, being employed in everyday use now. Making a video call seamlessly from your smart mobile device to someone, thousands of kilometres away seemed impossible more than a decade ago, but all that is the standard practice. I remember before the launch of GSM in Nigeria; you had to call people to find out if they were home and if the phones rang out, you had no other way of reaching them or even knowing where there were. Individuals who have been born into these technologies may never know how life was before without them.
Businesses Are Not Left Out
The impact of technology on the businesses and their environment is also evident, for example in the area of collaboration in the workplace. It has become easy to have work partnerships sharing information and ideas with colleagues in Dubai, Nigeria, the US or any other location on the face of the earth without having to be where they are physically. Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management or Business Intelligence or Decision Support Systems deployed centrally do not require you to be in the same geographical locations to access these systems. And one of the benefits of collaboration is the reduction in communication cost, everyone communicates with ease using powerful tools that also act as an enabler for innovation and increases market reach. Schools are also offering online courses and degrees providing a new experience in learning, and the brick and mortar shops are going full digital in their transformation and increasing revenue as a result. All of these examples require IT infrastructure hosted in data centers all around the world.
Enter The Cloud
One thing constant is change, businesses need to be adaptable to change and be fast and agile in the manner with which they respond to the market and create competitive advantages for themselves; driving innovation and improve on their strategy while driving down cost at the same time. Business intelligence and cloud computing are ways in which organizations can stimulate their agility.
The minute you mention cloud and cloud computing, you see the confusion in everyone’s eyes. I always start with the explanation of applications and infrastructure that are not managed or physically in the location of a business or a user. We all use personal email service providers who have servers hosted in a geographical location you are not in; you have social media companies, search engines and file and data hosting services, provided by businesses and these are some simple explanations of cloud computing.
It is worthy to note that cloud doesn’t mean the complete elimination of on-premise infrastructure from the whole conversation. Cloud computing gives the option of also having a hybrid model in place with the ability to move data from on-premise into and out of the cloud. The cloud computing services are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Analytics And Cloud
Information is a strategic asset which organizations own, that helps in their decision-making process, the combination of this asset and having either a public or private cloud strategy should be a top priority for organizations looking to get serious with their digital business. The embrace of cloud is on the increase, and it has changed the way in which business is conducted, the manner in which customer are reached and as mentioned earlier the way colleagues collaborate and the process of creating new business models. With a cloud analytics infrastructure, your cost and usage are aligned, keeping organizations up and running with on-demand analytics. Your data is available to you 24/7, and in the advent of a scheduled shutdown, there is prior notice given based on service level agreements, and you can adjust your requirements to match your analytical needs.
Cloud computing, in general, offers key benefits to different various C-level executives;
The CIOs can take advantage of cutting edge technology, reduce cost, deploy faster and improve security.
The COOs can make use of better IT resources, reduced operational risk that is associated with change and increased user satisfaction.
The CFOs can reduce cost, predict cost and move from capital to operational expenditure.
The CEOs can focus on innovation, getting better return on investment and focus on their core business.
There will be resistance from key figures in organizations pushing against change, but if the value and investment in a cloud service or infrastructure are worth the money and is economically justified for business, then the question “To Cloud or Not to Cloud?” is answered.
