Last year it became clear that being agile is more important than ever. An agile organization moves along more easily with the trends, changes, or unexpected events. But how do you, as a retailer, become agile? In this article, we will explain how cloud increases the agility of your retail organization.
A Cloud-Native way of working
Ten years ago, the term cloud was mainly about a location: it referred to the infrastructure in a data center of an (external) organization. Currently, the cloud also refers to a way of working, the so-called Cloud-Native way of working. This doesn't only includes the transition to working in the cloud, but also maximizing the unique possibilities that cloud infrastructure offers.
Cloud-Native technologies have expanded incredibly in the last few years. In essence, the goals remain unchanged: agility and productivity, resilience and scalability, and optimization and efficiency.
Benefits of working in the cloud
A Cloud-Native way of working is essential to stay relevant in the market. You outrun competitors since you can quickly respond to changes and trends. What does it deliver?
Time-to-market: introducing new products faster leads to a more growth
Agility: safety and trust in the implementation and the security
Cost reduction: flexible cost models and delegating tasks that are not included in your main activities
Analysis: use modern data tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to make analyses easier, since you own enough processing power and pre-trained models that you could not have developed yourself.
Adopting a new way of working
Digital-Native organizations naturally embrace the advantages of this new way of working since they are “born” in the cloud. Traditional organizations have to adopt a new way of working. Meaning: setting up technology and culture differently, based on that review and reinvent processes and develop applications with cloud as its starting point. Because of this approach, building new applications and functionalities becomes more accessible since side issues are taken care of and new developments can be implemented quicker.
The question is not ‘if’ you have to change, but ‘when.’
Cloud computing: reinforce your agility
Besides improving your way of working, the cloud can save you a lot of time. Time you can spend on different, valuable tasks. A large number of cloud providers offer managed services that can support your organization with managing backend software or infrastructure. This way, your IT team can focus on value development instead of preconditions like infrastructure and security. In other words, the IT team takes care of the operational overhead and experiments faster, and reduces the Total Costs of Ownership. This immediately provides advantages at services with potentially high operational savings and at services that are managed open source or are open source-compatible.
In addition, cloud can automate time-consuming tasks. In busier or in more quiet times you can scale up or scale down automatically when using the cloud. Since management tasks can be taken over, a lot of colleagues are relieved and new hardware does not need to be bought. This gives time and space left for other important tasks.
Key Takeaway
Using the cloud in a smart way and adhering to a Cloud-Native way of working are important factors in becoming an agile and flexible organization. Curious about the possibilities or are you ready to transform? We would like to tell you more about the cloud.
