COVID-19 is propelling digital transformation faster than imagined. This has afforded companies with ever-increasing opportunities to grow and innovate at scale and deploy technology rapidly.
The pandemic can be viewed as a game-changer to accelerate the digital transformation. Both businesses and the public sector can re-strategise, investing in more integrated digital infrastructure to manage current and future disruptions.
Some leading organisations have been able to do this – not by trying to outrun technological disruption, but by seeing it as an opportunity to reinvent themselves; and by learning to use it as an enabler to unlock new value sources.
OpenGov Asia organised a highly timely Virtual Breakfast Insight on 4 December 2020 to discuss effective and efficient multi-cloud data management strategies and how to ensure data availability, accessibility, and protection across any cloud environment while implementing strategies for reducing costs.
The importance of the highly timely topic was borne out by the fact that the session saw active participation, engagement, and full attendance from some of the leading enterprises from Singapore.
Winning Formula – Data intelligence, agility and insights
Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director, and Editor-in-Chief at OpenGov Asia initiated the proceedings by acknowledging the fact that data has gone off the ceiling in the current digital landscape.
Data being the new oil, this massive amount of data represents intelligence and insights which cannot be missed by any organisation. But data is only as valuable as the actionable insights that can be drawn from it. He urged the delegates to focus on the five pillars of cloud data management strategy:
(1) Security
(2) Compliance and Governance
(3) Cost Management
(4) Automation and Orchestration
(5) Performance Monitoring
Mohit acknowledged that while ICT professionals are juggling the tough job of maintaining a tight balance between data availability, protection and security. It is no surprise, then, that they are choosing to pursue cloud-based data management as their best business option. As such, across industries, the cloud has proved to be an invaluable tool for advancing business.
In the same vein, he also implored the delegates to look at the various possibilities that cloud data management provides. Although local data storage has been the industry standard for some time, the preference is shifting as businesses become aware of new developments and the advantages of cloud data management technology.
Mohit’s concluding remarks encouraged the delegates to incorporate a simple, secured, scalable, and robust data management system. He advised them to partner with technology experts in the field who can support them on this journey.
Future-Ready Enterprise: Automation, orchestration, and performance matters
After Mohit’s opening, Justin Loh, Country Director, Veritas Technologies, gave an overview of Veritas Technologies’ effective offerings and the accolades they have received year after year. He elaborated on the benefits of Veritas’s Enterprise Data services platform with the audience.
Justin spoke about how the Veritas Enterprise Data Service (EDS) Platform brings new levels of availability, protection and insights at the enterprise scale. It can help the digital executives better manage, protect and simplify their data landscape.
Justin expanded on the innovative features of their platform and how it helps customers reduce risk, optimise cost, strengthen ransomware resiliency and manage multi-cloud environments at scale. The EDS platform allows organisations to get what matters to them most – highly available apps, always protected and recoverable data and insights that drive operational efficiency and regulatory compliance.
The platform also allows organisations to gain control of their data to help them manage their growth, reduce the impact of ransomware and improve compliance for on-premises and cloud environments.
Justin concluded his session by sharing his observations that have been gathered from interaction with various business leaders. He mentioned four key areas that have been in the spotlight:
- Sustaining the business
- Cost optimisation
- Risk management & compliance
- Reinventing future business models
Embracing cloud to innovate faster
After Justin’s presentation, Franco Chiam, General Manager – Digital and Innovation Lead, Daimler South East Asia shared his organisation’s Cloud journey with the delegates.
Franco agreed with Justin’s remarks on accelerating digital transformation with the adoption of cloud strategy. He explained that his organisation’s cloud journey and its objective to ensure that they remain innovative and relevant.
Daimler pivoted its IT priorities to three pillars of – Move, Perform, and Transform. In the initial stages, the strategy veered around:
– Cloud & DevOps
– Security & Identity and Access Management
– API Architecture
– Open-source. etc
Over the years, the focus has now shifted towards:
- Self-Services, Automation
- Data Analytics, ML/AI
- Connected Platforms
- Software & Products
All these initiatives have helped the organisation to ensure that the plans and capabilities are optimised. They have additionally helped the team to redesign and provide better solutions that meet the current and emerging needs of their customers.
Franco divided the resulting top achievements into five areas:
- Automation and Innovation
- Capacity Building
- Service Experience
- Enable Workforce Transformation
- Control & Reduce Cost
Franco rightly took pride in stating that recalibrating and automating processes have resulted in building new digital services and agile innovation.
He ended his session saying that getting the right team members helps increase capacity building and in turn accelerate the journey of digital transformation.
Abstracting IT complexity, while improving application availability
After Franco’s inspiring presentation, John Abel, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Veritas Technologieshared his valuable insights with the delegates.
John began by agreeing that the economic difficulties being faced by businesses have been exacerbated and their digital transformation efforts have been disrupted due to the ongoing pandemic.
Many industries have almost been decimated like the travel and hospitality industry, Many have had to rethink their strategy of how to serve their customers remotely and revitalising their IT applications.
He drew an interesting comparison between the Ford Corporation, Tesla and Airbnb. He emphasised how Airbnb has effectively utilised data and insights to create a better user experience.
He made a foundational statement on which he laid his premise: with changing customer behaviour and the rise of a new generation of consumers who are digital natives, it is almost imperative for organisations to rethink their IT strategies and evolve to serve them better.
Data will allow organisations to draw actionable insights. He acknowledged the rapid transformation and the increased digital footprint of doing everything online, especially in the current landscape.
On the flip side, this data explosion and rapid digital transformation have exposed organisations to a lot of external risks like ransomware and dark data. All these factors together have increased the IT complexity, making it even more challenging for the organisations to stay resilient.
John urged the delegates to protect their organisations against the significant rise in ransomware and also referred to a recent survey done by Veritas in this area.
John concluded his presentation by saying that exponential data growth, prominent data threats like ransomware and a highly volatile and ever-changing data regulatory environment are some of the things that keep CIOs awake. But he could sleep well at night because he knows where his organisation’s data is sitting, readily available and secured and that he can draw insights to the benefit of his organisation. All this is possible because of the advantages of the Enterprise Data Platform.
Protection against the growing threat of ransomware
After an enlightening session by John, Andy Ng, VP, Managing Director, ASR Sales of Veritas Technologies shared some very insightful findings from research recently commissioned by Veritas Technologies.
The study was conducted across 21 countries globally with a very strong representation from South East Asia. The objective of the survey was to gain insight into organisations preparedness against ransomware attacks.
Key findings from the survey indicated that:
– 64% store their data and applications in the cloud
– 61% use more than 5 different cloud services (data complexity/visibility)
– 70% of corporations who suffered a ransomware attack took more than 24 hours to resume normal business operations
– The third biggest concern occupying organisational time is how to fend off risks from external and internal risks and data loss
After shedding some light on the current cybersecurity landscape, he explained to the delegates how the Veritas Enterprise Data Service Platform can help delegates better manage, protect, and simplify their data landscape.
Polling Questions & Discussion
After the presentations from the speakers, it was time to engage in vibrant discussions with the audience through polling questions.
On the first question about the requirement that is shaping their landscape to be agile with the business needs, delegates were divided between the speed of change for applications, data and building/removing core business systems (40%) while an equal percentage of them voted for adapting to changing customer demands.
A senior delegate from a leading enterprise shared that incorporating the needs of the customers is of paramount importance and enterprises need to evolve and overcome their legacy infrastructure to be able to serve the next generation of customers. This has especially gained importance in the COVID-19 era.
On the next question about the biggest challenge faced by organisations when looking at digital transformation, the participants were split between skill shortage to implement and operate technology (31%) and dependency on the need to integrate with legacy systems and/or technology (38%). It came as no surprise that 23% of the delegates voted for securing against cyber threats as one of their biggest challenges.
For the third question on evaluating new technologies and considerations being taken as a priority, there were interesting answers from the delegates. Operational simplicity and product reliability were hands down the most preferred choice of answer from the delegates (50%).
At the same time, 25% of delegates chose vendor brand reputation and end-to-end capabilities and cost optimisation (25%) as their choices. This led to a presentation of varied but interesting insights into the buying decisions of the delegates.
On the final question about the area of interest for your organisation and what do they value the most, the audience overwhelmingly voted for delivering business resiliency through highly available applications and workloads and ease of doing business through a simplified technology consumption model (42%).
There was unanimity in the delegates’ choice of answers stating that there is no luxury of time and that simplicity is key. A delegate observed that simplicity means customisation and that the technology should be able to future-proof the business.
Conclusion
After the hugely interactive, exciting, and engaging polling session, John addressed the delegates to bring the informative session to its logical end.
The thought-provoking discussion and sharing by prominent Singapore enterprises undoubtedly provided food for thought for all the participants.
John urged the delegates to be prepared to evolve as new-age consumers who are more tech-savvy are on the rise. Data is going to explode and become even more complex and technology needs to rise to the occasion and become intuitive.
He acknowledged unequivocally that this is one of the best times for IT leaders. He urged them to get the seat on the board and have a say in business decisions.
Mohit added that these are exciting times and IT is not only the enabler but is in the driver seat. It is no longer just a “fix my computer” job for IT but how to drive the business into the next era.
