Mick McNeil, Vice President, Business Development, Microsoft Business, Logicalis, outlines how unlocking and activating value from data has clear top-line benefits for organisations by moving to the cloud.
Leaders around the globe are realising, ‘I won’t exist if I am not in the Cloud’. A stark reality, but one realised by many leaders, as Satya Nadella shared in his interview with Morgan Stanley. It’s a lesson that may have been learnt given time, but one that’s been accelerated by the pandemic.
The critical question, ‘Will my business continue to exist?’, ultimately comes down to two things:
Competitiveness: Is your workforce productive and collaborative? Do you leverage your data to enhance customer service and acquire new customers? Have you optimised your operations for cost and efficiency?
Resilience: Is your business able to respond to market pressures and opportunities with agility? Do you consider your organisation secure against rising threats?
Many of your competitors are answering yes to these questions. If you are not, that’s a challenging place to be.
For every answer, look to data
Unlocking and activating value from data has clear top-line benefits. By focusing on, setting up or enhancing a cloud-based data platform and equipping agile teams, CIOs can double or even triple, development velocity in the short term.
Long-term success can be heavily influenced by the effectiveness of a company’s approach to data. However, optimising data is an elaborate task. It includes developing approaches to data governance, redesigning processes as modular applications and tapping into the benefits of flexible, scalable, cloud-based technology.
By focusing on building an intelligent digital architecture on a modern cloud estate, businesses activate data value and reap the rewards. By putting data at the centre of organisational evolution, businesses can gain clear insight across the business, make informed decisions and create business agility.
Business agility is critical
Business agility is achieved by rapidly adapting goods and services to meet customer demand. COVID-19 has forever transformed customer lives, particularly in the adoption of digital, resembling a ‘decade in days’ shift. These behaviour changes have reshaped consumer decision journeys and companies need to adapt fast or risk losing to those who made the move to digital earlier.
Companies already in the cloud can benefit from an increased pace of product development that directly aligns IT infrastructure with business goals and objectives. Additionally, they can scale IT processes up and down as needed, optimising IT asset usage. Also, of critical importance to businesses post-pandemic is business resilience and security sits at the heart of this.
Security is a core tenant of resilience
Insider data breach incidents, whether accidental or malicious, are on the rise and will increase by 25% in 2021. Even for companies that are already in the cloud, we are seeing an opportunity to better define and deploy security technology to remove vulnerabilities and reduce the risk of future attacks.
Organisations must continue to adapt their approaches to security and invest in new models. The only effective approach to security and business resilience is a holistic, architectural approach – one that is manageable, adaptable, responsive and developed with the right partner.
Engaging experts
C-Suite executives believe their organisation cannot capture agility benefits by simply shifting applications to cloud platforms. A holistic cloud strategy is now a fundamental component of business strategy. Ultimately, leaders need to understand how to leverage the latest technology innovations in the cloud to deliver on their business strategy and objectives.
The challenge today? The pace of innovation coming from Microsoft and other public cloud vendors, requires significant investment to interpret and translate innovations into solutions that answer business objectives. This investment for most organisations is simply prohibitive, but critical should they want to stay at the forefront of technology and remain competitive.
Working with a trusted, proven partner, such as Logicalis, removes this challenge. Partners with the credentials, experience and deep connections into companies like Microsoft are the trusted advisors that can lead you through the complexity, to get ahead of your competitors.
Logicalis’ experience with private, hosted, hybrid and public clouds ensure businesses receive a secure, agile, scalable and universally available environment, whilst conforming to the strictest security standards regardless of the location the systems operate in.
No matter the size of your business or the stage you are at on your cloud transformation journey, it’s important to remember that without a continued focus on leveraging the latest technology to gain a competitive edge, you may be left behind. So, do you think you can exist without the cloud?