INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Choosing the right cloud to
drive your digital revolution
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Derek Bose, Senior Director
for South Africa and the
SADC Regional Cluster at
Oracle, says the starting
point to any Digital
Transformation strategy is
to choose the right cloud to
integrate all the different
elements into a common
platform. Only then can
companies gain the speed
and agility they need for
their digital revolution.
I
n the book, Crowd: Harnessing our
Digital Future, the authors speak of a
triple revolution – that ‘we must rethink
the integration of minds and machines, of
products and platforms and of the core and
the crowd.’ making the business more agile or driving
new revenue – and how will cloud help you
achieve this? Do you use public, private or
hybrid cloud? Does your business understand
these different models, as well as what the
impact will be if they select a certain option?
They introduce the acronym DANCE,
to memorably illustrate what tools
organisations need to master and scale
Digital Transformation: Answering this often depends on an
organisation’s technology maturity. There
are external factors to consider. Growing
regulation around where and how data
can be stored means that highly-regulated
industries need an appropriate solution.
• Data – of which we are collecting and
storing massive volumes
• Algorithms – this allows machines to
take over the more mundane tasks,
allowing people to focus on identifying
new value
• Networks – technology and infrastructure,
whether it is fibre, LTE or the upcoming
5G, high speed connectivity is spreading
around the globe
• Cloud – where you can integrate all the
different elements into a common platform
• Exponentially improving hardware –
everything from the Internet of Things
(IoT), to automation, robotics, 3D
printing, drones and improvements in
computer processing power that seem to
defy Moore’s Law
Choosing the right enablement partner
While in pursuit of your digital revolution, it is
important to select the right technology that
can bring actual value to your organisation,
as opposed to simply following a fad or
getting distracted in a niche space. The
starting point, as can be seen from DANCE, is
to find the right cloud model and vendor for
your organisation – a vendor with breadth
and depth.
Derek Bose, Senior Director for South Africa
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INTELLIGENTCIO
What do you want to achieve through
cloud adoption? Is it about cutting costs,
Thankfully, innovative offerings such as
Oracle’s Cloud at Customer empowers
organisations by moving their workloads
to the cloud, while keeping data on their
own premises.
The need for speed
Where the idea of shifting toward digital
business across the organisation was
speculative for most C-suite executives a few
years ago, the Gartner 2018 CIO Agenda
survey shows that it has now become a top
priority across all industries.
The research firm adds that in
today’s increasingly ‘digital ecosystem’
economy, success will be based on the
speed of integration.
Companies can only gain this speed and agility
by shifting to a completely integrated cloud.
Even better, Oracle’s own experience of
moving its business platform to cloud
uncovered yet another advantage – it
elevates morale. Moving users away from
on-premise systems, and onto modern cloud-
based application environments, results in
marked improvements to the employees’
work life balance. n
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