As more employees were working from home, organisations needed to reinvent their approach from both internal, and outward facing aspects. Companies needed to adjust organisational software as well as processes to adapt to this new environment where employees needed to continue working efficiently and effectively, but from home. Those who were able to adapt fast to deploy Cloud technology in their offering and practice, are most likely the businesses that will show resilience in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Cloud solutions offer organisations of all sizes and verticals a tremendous opportunity to somewhat ensure business continuity in uncertain times. Cloud products and solutions are certainly nothing new, and we were seeing an increase in the volume of companies shifting their infrastructure to the Cloud prior to the pandemic, but certainly a spike and urgency in this move during. Most noticeably for online productivity and collaboration tools.
The Cloud offered many innovative ways to connect some industries and offer continuity, but also allowed a platform from which entrepreneurs could approach difficulties with innovative solutions.
Some interesting use cases we saw with increased emphasis from the pandemic include:
- Digital Conferencing - Productivity and collaboration tools (such as Microsoft and Zoom) saw massive upticks in usage.
- Education - Teachers had to quickly adapt lesson plans and learn “new” collaboration and conferencing technology to keep them in front of their learners, and their learners on-top of their education.
- Medical - General practitioners had to switch to offer remote medical consultations, and larger diagnosticians could utilise cloud based platforms to assist in diagnosing potential Covid-19 patients remotely. The Cloud was also deployed for using big (health) data together with AI in, for example viral genome detection.
- Equipment - The cloud was used to share models and to facilitate 3D printing of critical respiratory equipment at scale, globally.
- Tracking - Apple and Google banded together to create software that would assist with tracing Covid-19 positive patient’s contact cases, and analyse the spread of the virus.
The Cloud market was increasing long before COVID-19, but if anything, the pandemic has showcased the resilience for businesses utilising Cloud technology.
Businesses should therefore turn their attention to future-proofing; creating the right infrastructure to quickly deploy and adopt necessary cloud solutions.
Cloud-based services may be elastic, meaning they are quick to scale up or down. But the speed in which companies are able to scale up will depend on their network architecture and the kinds of services they offer. Two other big factors, especially for those in South Africa is cost and connectivity. Switching existing infrastructure to Cloud could be expensive. Connectivity has long been a roadblock in this country, and will continue playing a significant role to assist with future-proofing economies and we will need to do more to knock down barriers for many, especially in more remote, and rural parts of the country.
Implementing a Cloud solution, does not imply that you must choose from products already available (off-the-shelf) and can’t create a custom, or even hybrid solution for your business. PlatSoft specialises in both custom and Cloud software solutions that are affordable. Speak to us about future-proofing your business through Cloud software.
