Many businesses are sitting on an untapped deposit of money without realising it. According to an IDC study, companies which digitally transform by using hybrid cloud realise annual new revenue gains of US$9.6 million per business on average.
Fostering more efficient IT infrastructure teams, providing robust application and business support, reducing the frequency and duration of unplanned outages, and enabling more efficient use of resources are just some of the ways that leveraging hybrid cloud can help businesses to unlock/discover unrealised millions in benefits.
Hybrid cloud strategies can help businesses reduce their infrastructure expenses because businesses can scale their compute and storage capacity more closely to their actual requirements without the need for making additional hardware investments.
With this sudden additional cash savings, companies can use it to invest in driving innovation by creating a cloud-ready workforce at their own pace and have greater agility in their digital transformation.
Creating a cloud-ready workforce
With the ability to leverage hybrid cloud solutions, companies also require a cloud ready workforce that is adept with the new technology – to be able to tap into that additional cash. Because a skilled IT team can ensure that a business is agile and prepared for a digital future.
According to the recent "Unlocking APAC's Digital Potential: Changing Digital Skill Needs and Policy Approaches" research, prepared by strategy and economics consulting firm AlphaBeta, cloud architecture design will be one of the top five in-demand digital skills in Singapore, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea in the next four years.
Migrations to the cloud usually involve refactoring and learning a new set of skills, tools, and processes to manage applications.
Organisations often create a skills gap when they migrate to the cloud, which puts them under pressure to upskill their existing workforce to use new technologies or bring in new skills through external hires while reallocating existing employees to other projects. Neither option is fast nor cost-effective to enable organisations to fully reap the benefits of what the cloud has to offer.
A more efficient way for organisations to move to the cloud is to have a similar software stack on-premises and in the public cloud.
This consistency is particularly beneficial for legacy workloads that are tightly coupled to the infrastructure environments. Using the same software that organisations have in their data centres, the public cloud becomes a seamless extension of on-premises data centres, allowing employees to manage both on-premises and cloud resources through a familiar interface.
Using familiar tools also means IT staff don’t have to learn new skills and interfaces when expanding to the public cloud and can use their existing IT skills to achieve higher innovation levels.
One customer recently told me: “The benefit of having a similar software stack on-premises and in the public cloud is that you don’t need your people to learn another technology. Engineers already have all the knowledge required to run and maintain the systems, because they’re familiar with the existing software.”
A consistent software environment during the migration process allows businesses to upskill their workforce at a sustainable pace without losing momentum on their digital transformation journey while establishing an employee culture of learning that encourages experimentation with different approaches.
Freeing staff time to digitally transform
A refocused, cloud-ready workforce can accelerate business agility and innovation. This is because the cloud frees up employee resources and time previously spent on maintaining infrastructure, installing software, and running data centres.
With this newly found time, employees can instead refocus their energy on delivering digital transformation initiatives. Instead of focusing on day-to-day operational tasks and working with customers on a transactional basis, engineers and business intelligence analysts can look towards building new architectures, modernising data platforms, and integrating partners into their IT systems.
Automating IT infrastructure operations, using easy-to-use tools for monitoring and reporting, and leveraging existing IT staff and skills can help accelerate this process.
With the cloud, organisations gain access to a wide range of tools and applications to meet their business needs. Instead of creating their services from scratch, online cloud marketplaces also make it easier for organisations to purchase and integrate applications with a few clicks.
IDC also found that application developers using hybrid cloud were significantly more productive. They spend less time addressing application availability issues as the cloud makes completed applications better available to users throughout the business. Developer teams can use their freed-up time to experiment with new projects which streamline operations and drive business growth.
Increasing your pace of innovation
Organisations need to find a way to transform based on their unique needs digitally. By using an approach that leverages existing applications and moves them to the cloud, organisations have the freedom to transform at their own pace and using existing skillsets, which saves time and cost. It’s time to cash in your piggy bank to accelerate digital transformation and innovate faster than your competitors.
