Former business models and IT strategies are becoming inefficient, old methods of communication do not work; customer behavior, consumption patterns of products and services are changing.  It is hard to assume that in a new digital economy, companies will be able to work with the same efficiency based on outdated principles. It is crucial for businesses to be aware of digital transformation trends and requirements to sustain, grow and become highly profitable.

Although there are numerous challenges that companies face during building their digital transformation and cloud migration strategies such as security issues, cost management and control, lack of understanding what cloud to choose and inertial resistance, the main issue is lack of internal expertise. The best way to manage that digital transformation path is to choose experienced IT specialists who can confidently drive the innovation and business process improvement.

Companies start digital transformation to enhance business efficiency and optimize business processes. With the development of cloud technologies, it has become easier to control the usage of hardware and software, improve business scalability, provide IT resilience and business continuity. First of all, cloud solutions are changing ways of managing technological and information resources, providing several advantages over classical scenarios for the use of on-premise infrastructure.

• Efficiency. Cloud resources are generally independent of hardware and its geographic location. That provides significant savings due to the simplicity of IT resources scaling in accordance with business needs and external factors.
• Flexibility. IT resources can be instantly provisioned from hundreds of templates and applications. Also, business applications can be easily scaled at peak times and return to a previous state later.
• Automation. Cloud management software prevents budget exceed with full provisioning control, predictive insights, sophisticated reports and automated optimization based on deep analytics of historical and current usage of the IT environment. This leads to a decrease in the number of daily actions of corporate IT personnel and a more accurate usage of IT resources.
• Simplicity and Availability. There are far more applications, information, resources and business services available to employees than the outdated technologies can provide. As a rule, access to the technologies is provided via a regular web browser in a couple of clicks.

The digitalization of business is not only about cutting-edge technologies but also about changing a mindset and culture of a company. Here are a few key aspects of digital transformation:

• Smart data governance. Digital transformation of a company is realized through integration of advanced technologies, for example, Big Data or AI, that are used for data processing to make more informed business decisions and predict behavior based on accurate insights.
• Improvement of customer experience. New technologies allow companies to provide a better user experience. Digital communication channels, omnicanality, artificial intelligence, robotization – we face these trends on a daily basis.
• Flexibility and acceleration of business processes. To be successful, a business needs to be fast and flexible – to adjust not only when there is a need, but when there is an opportunity. The digital transformation of business processes targets to ensure that companies make decisions promptly, quickly adapt to the requirements of momentum and meet customer needs.
• Innovative opportunities for business development. Cloud technologies are an integral part of the digital transformation strategy. They allow not only to simplify the internal business processes but modernize all IT infrastructure of a company and make it sustainable, flexible and secure. Ready to be used cloud solutions allow companies to save time on solving problems. Various cloud services optimize work of a company and require predictable time to spend on their implementation and adaptation.

The concept of IT infrastructure and resources has been changing and companies, frozen in traditional processes, have a risk of becoming non-competitive. Following current trends  is impossible without a broad and in-depth analysis of both existing data and external information resources. Creating, maintaining and developing a modern on-premise IT infrastructure within a company is very complex and not scalable – physical resources are expensive, as are skilled employees, who are very hard to recruit nowadays.

That is why the option of using cloud technologies in addition to on-premise IT infrastructure has been increasingly considered. Today, the argument for long-term savings is not that important when considering the cloud technologies, and issues of business continuity and flexibility in the use of resources play a significant role.

Cloud technologies with security, resilience, simple integration and other advanced features are indispensable for small and medium business or enterprises. Numerous existing cloud solutions allow companies to be flexible and quickly adjust business processes depending on their requirements. The pace and scope of cloud transformation and digitalization will only be increasing. So why not to think about that right now and be prepared for the future?

Nick Smirnov, CEO and Co-Founder at Hystax Inc.