Hybrid cloud has caught on like wildfire amongst enterprises looking to transform themselves digitally. For obvious reasons, most organizations are more comfortable opting for hybrid cloud than pure cloud as far as digital transformation is concerned. While digital transformation has become essential for the survival and sustenance of an enterprise, the question of how quickly can an enterprise adopt and transform, still remains.
Changing business dynamics are forcing enterprises to re-think on their business models and are prompting questions such as – what kind of technology to adopt, when and how quickly should it adopt. There is no doubt that Mobile and Social have been influencing businesses in more ways than imagined as customers heavily rely on these platforms. The customers (and clients) of today are smarter in their choices, more knowledgeable and for better or worse, are time-constrained.
Therefore, the question is – Can enterprises deliver faster, smarter and better services?
Experts opine that enterprises can deliver faster, smarter, and better solutions by adopting Hybrid cloud services. Hybrid cloud provides an enterprise with the architectural framework required to set up a dynamic IT environment which is the need of the day. A dynamic IT system or environment helps enterprises handle unpredictable changes and offers possibilities for better operational performance and for delivering better customer experience.
Let’s observe the ways in which Hybrid cloud helps enterprises respond in a faster and smarter manner –
Increased networking requirements: Enterprises are required to respond faster to customer and market needs even as they look to remain competitive. Business expansions and changing market needs demand increased networking, storage, and computing facilities – all of which contribute to additional costs and operational requirements. The efforts do not end here; obtaining all these facilities and requirements in time is an uphill task. This is where Hybrid cloud plays a vital role – it helps enterprises fulfill business needs while ensuring reduced costs and faster digital transformation.
Flexible to Changes: Time is a huge constraint in the present business scenario and enterprises need to be agile and quickly transform based on needs. Hybrid cloud with its ability to combine the strengths of in-house and cloud services provides the required flexibility to cater to changing needs and newer demands. Hybrid cloud helps enterprises deliver the right service levels in a quicker way so as to meet changing business needs.
Take for example the case of an e-commerce company –
There are days and occasions during which e-commerce companies face higher web visits and soaring sales. An e-commerce enterprise with Hybrid cloud capabilities can maximize its service offerings in such circumstances. While the enterprise can utilize its in-house data centre solutions for more critical services such as financial transactions it can use public or private cloud applications (via Hybrid) for other customer service requirements and data analytics purposes.
Higher visits and sales lead to – higher transactions, larger data assimilation and of course higher number of digital footprints. Cloud applications can gather data concerning all of this in a quicker manner creating an advantage over in-house applications which require higher investments in infrastructure while also slowing the response rate to customer needs.
Efficient and effective operations: Increased business needs call for increased operational requirements and for different services. Enterprises will be burdened to go about all of this through in-house applications. Moreover, this could also lead to disruption in current operations resulting in chaos. The smarter way for enterprises to ensure operational efficiency and effectiveness without any disruptions is by adopting Hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud, as a distributed service, allows for enterprises to avail required facilities and applications as per need while ensuring continuity of current operations.
Smarter through Analytics: Big data is a reality now and enterprises all over the world are sitting on loads and loads of data. Unfortunately, most enterprises do not have a clue on how to organize and utilize this data. Hybrid cloud allows for an effective analytics strategy equipping enterprises with relevant data insights that can be actionable. Actionable insights help enterprises tread an effective path leading to better business performance.
Citing the E-commerce enterprise example again –
Terabytes of data is gathered by online stores via – site visits, product surfing, product selection and product purchase or non-purchase. Collecting, storing, segmenting and analyzing this data can be a difficult and time-consuming task, not to mention the burden of additional costs. The smarter thing for the E-commerce enterprise is to access and harness all data analytical capabilities via hybrid cloud which not only helps on cost savings but also on efforts by dispelling the need for qualified resources required to manage in-house capabilities.
Better Response and Relationships: Hybrid cloud enables enterprises to have a sound analytical strategy to understand customer/client requirements better and provide the right service levels. This helps enterprises become smarter in their response to customers. With the benefit of knowing what kind of products or services customers look for, an enterprise can plan its promotion and marketing strategies accordingly.
In terms of service—enterprises benefit by knowing what went well with customers and what did not, allowing them to redefine their services with the objective of creating and sustaining better customer/client relationships.
Conclusion
To sustain and be successful in a rapidly changing business ecosystem enterprises need to embrace digital, there is no doubt on that. Digital transformation helps enterprises accommodate themselves to changing market conditions but then digital transformation requires changes in current IT infrastructure while not hindering business continuity. Hybrid cloud plays a vital role in helping enterprises achieve digital transformation in a faster and smarter manner that will help enterprises fulfill the requirements of changing business conditions.
Hybrid cloud, at the end of the day, fulfills the dual objectives of —having a better IT infrastructure and achieving the digital transformation that helps enterprises stay ahead of the curve. Agility is an important pre-requisite of any enterprise because that is the only way an enterprise can survive and grow under unpredictable business circumstances—Hybrid cloud just about makes enterprises agile!