Multi-Cloud will get More Complex with ‘Everything-as-a-Service’ Gaining Traction

In an exclusive interaction, Rahul S Kurkure, Founder & Director, Cloud.in, shares the highlights of his achievements and how work cultures will evolve further leading to more experimentation with collaboration tools and cloud

The last two years have seen enterprises heighten their focus on digital transformation, however, results are not much impressive in many cases. According to you, what are the top 3 challenges your customers face in their digital transformation journey?

Businesses had to accelerate their Digital Transformation journeys with the onset of the pandemic. Earlier, what was meant to deliver a competitive edge with the digitalization of selected aspects of business processes, is inadequate today. Digital transformation became an essential process or the new normal for business continuity and growth. Remote working culture, online business transactions and constantly evolving needs of customers are key drivers for this.

Despite all the business benefits, there are challenges to successful digital transformation across industries.

• Convincing the C-Suite to commit to digital transformation is one such challenge. Although the leadership team is aware of the importance of digital transformation, getting them to go for new business models and apply budget changes is not smooth. The complexities involved with uncertainties of new-age technologies are difficult for CXO-level consumption as they want proven practices to be totally convinced.
• The lack of relevant skill sets among employees is another hurdle in the process. New tools and technologies are not easily accepted by employees who are generally resistant to change. In addition, many of them lack the skill sets for data integration, data analysis, cybersecurity and more.
• Constantly changing customer requirements is one more area, organizations have to look into. Years of digital transformation implementation may not be enough to cater to the new changes and organizations have to keep up with the changes to remain relevant.

As a system integrator, how are you positioned to address these challenges and make sure the digital transformation initiatives achieve their objectives?

The C-Suite generally looks at investing in new-age technologies as an addition and not as being an essential part of the business model. Focusing on how the investment in Digital Transformation will fetch more RoI, gets the attention of the leadership team. We deliver a budgeting model, which is flexible and a collaborative approach involving different Business Units and advantages they can expect with digital transformation, which is crucial.

Outsourcing to bridge the skill gaps in the organization is an efficient and cost-effective way to address the challenges of talent scarcity. Ongoing training will be provided by our team to the relevant employees at the organization, on operations.

Furthermore, the business leaders should be made to understand the evolving customer demands and how important it is for an organization to be agile and remain relevant, which is made possible with continuous digital transformation efforts and management by partnering with a System Integrator.

What are the top 3 technology solutions which are getting the most attention from the customers and why?

Some technology solutions that power better customer experience are gaining more traction today. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is crucial for the organization’s success to deliver business outcomes. Implementing a CRM policy can be challenging but Cloud Computing technology has come to the rescue. Cloud-based CRM can help in integrating the system into the existing IT infrastructure at a lower cost. Cloud supports product innovation to meet the changing demands of customers and deliver better business agility.

AI and Machine Learning technologies are used by marketing and sales professionals to predict customer behavior and needs, besides improved decision-making, targeted marketing and omni-channel messaging are possible too. Along with continuous learning and improving the offering, it enables predicting customer behavior in the future as well. AI Chatbots and digital assistants are used for assisting customers with timely and efficient interaction by delivering the required information to them.

Big Data and Analytics help in gathering and analyzing data to deliver customized offerings and eventually establish customer loyalty. It also helps in extracting the hidden patterns in data to gain meaningful trends in the market.

What is the adoption you see for advanced technologies including AI, analytics, IoT, automation, and RPA? What are the customers which are adopting these solutions?

Advanced technologies are defining the way businesses are already getting done now and in the future too, for the delivery of exceptional customer experience. They are leveraged to automate several business processes that are connected to each other. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is leveraged by many organizations across sectors and widely accepted. Automating repetitive business processes and streamlining them is leading to saving huge time and effort.

Automation efforts are advanced by integrating cognitive technologies, such as AI, ML, IoT with RPA. With these changes, employee productivity is enhanced and operations are optimized with cost reduction established. Scalability, business efficiency, and competence are enhanced too.

Almost all industry verticals, such as banking and financial institutions, Healthcare, Retail, Supply Chain and Logistics, Manufacturing, Pharma, and Telecom leverage these technologies.

Please talk about the highlights of your achievements over the last 12-18 months.

Since its inception, the growth of the Cloud.in has been on an upward trajectory. As an AWS Cloud Partner, it’s been an amazing journey and we continue to grow at a phenomenal pace. We are transitioning from a traditional service provider to a next-gen solution provider. We look towards a 100 percent YoY growth by 2025.

We at Cloud.in, strongly believe in personalized service to all customers whether enterprises, SMEs, digital-native businesses, or startups. With over two decades of experience in deploying and managing Mission Critical workloads across different sectors, we have a good understanding of customer pain points.  We work at configuring tailor-made solutions as per their requirements and suitable to their budgets.  We are working with customers from the e-commerce, financial services, and media sectors among others, on AWS.  Being a game-changer in Cloud offerings, Cloud.in has numerous endorsements from its customers and the industry in general.

Intellectual Platforms added by Cloud.in recently include Freedom (Multi-Cloud Billing and Management Platform), Cloud Advisor (Multi-Cloud Security Advisory Tool), Edge Insights (Edge Analytics and Intelligence), and VFORT (Secure Edge Delivering Platform).

Please talk about your top focus areas over the next couple of years.

We plan to expand our presence to international markets in the next few years. We are transitioning from a traditional service provider to a next-gen solution provider.  Going forward, we plan to extend as a Multi-Cloud Services provider and SaaS Solution Provider.

• While Enterprise remains the core of our business with the right set of investments, we want to ensure that we are equally focusing and acquiring Startups & Fintech customers.
• Migration & modernization will be our key focus service areas.
• Cloud Security & Compliance services to help enterprises strengthen their security strategy against rising cyber threats while also ensuring security resiliency and compliance requirements.
• Enterprises today are striving to keep up the pace in the growing digital landscape. And are constantly looking for solutions to better engage customers with their products and services. But often find it difficult to grow with low-performing websites and applications. To help enterprises of any size improvise the performance of their applications, and websites and better manage edge networking, deployments, and integrations, our focus will be on providing ‘CDN & Edge Solutions’ along with AWS.

What is your outlook for the technology industry over the next 2-3 years?

Technology will continue to lead the path toward economic growth across the globe. Cloud technology will be embraced further, accelerating digital transformation efforts and driving further innovation. Managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments will get more complex with ‘Everything-as-a-Service’ gaining more traction.

With the hybrid workforce becoming the new normal, work cultures will evolve further leading to more experimentation with collaboration tools.

5G will in the coming years set the premise for the next-level connectivity and innovation.

Companies will begin to adopt sustainable practices to reduce their environmental footprint. ESG factors will grow in importance.

AI adoption will increase across industry verticals as it will become a necessity.

The activity in the M & A market will increase. Strategic acquirers will look at companies that can enhance their capabilities and support the development of new markets.

There will be an increase in demand for a skilled workforce with new-age skill sets.

Cybersecurity will become a top business priority across all organizations.

AI-driven services, edge computing, and decentralized data architecture will together drive the next industrial revolution.