Building a business resilience strategy in a cloud environment

OVER the past year, organisations have been thrust into hybrid working arrangements, creating a new level of complexity for leaders, and bringing about a new major challenge faced by most enterprises: building a resilient workforce.

While many organisations have transformed and flexed to rapidly evolving circumstances, businesses must be more adaptable than ever during this volatile recovery period. Moreover, with the pandemic impacting companies financially, many have survived by innovating and embracing a cloud-first strategy.

This paradigm shift has enabled business leaders to remain forward-thinking, thereby ushering in a new era of value delivery. However, as the future still demands business resilience and agility to thrive, here are three key learnings on why leaders and organisations must harness cloud systems to strengthen their business value amid uncertainty.

Driving a long-term competitive edge

Resilience is key to a strong recovery as well as to manage the impact of future shocks. With industries across the board facing greater disruptions in the form of competitors, innovation and increasing compliance demands, companies must fully optimise cloud systems to stay ahead and stand out.

In today's era of cloud-based environments, there is great opportunity for businesses to standardise and scale. These cloud systems help to unlock greater flexibility, unify silos and automate processes. As such, teams can leverage seamless collaboration and transform the way the business operates, with the result they become more productive and efficient.

Another key feature to business resilience lies within increased accessibility - the jewel in the crown of cloud benefits. Through providing employees 24/7 access to systems and networks, data becomes decentralised and easily available. With business documents, and employee-centric information easily accessible anywhere, collaboration becomes a breeze and this creates a competitive advantage for organisations.

Delivering an always-on business

Although cloud integration is driven by IT, cloud journeys need to be informed by business goals in the longer term. With a focus on revamping workflow processes, leaders must not lose sight of improving the business's bottom line. This includes building and strengthening a robust relationship with clients by understanding their pain points.

The traditional ways of working are being challenged by a more dynamic and demanding workforce. As such, the first step for organisations to stay ahead of innovation is by embracing modern business trends.

An example that reflects this would be the integration of cloud-based platforms into existing business processes and systems. This will provide greater insights and analysis to the business which can help accelerate data-driven decisions.

From touchpoints to journey: Foundations for business success

While 2020 was the great reset for many organisations, it might have also been the wake-up call we needed. Looking ahead, companies must now learn to effectively harness digital technologies such as the cloud to ensure they have the capabilities to grow and thrive beyond the pandemic.

However, according to Alibaba Cloud's 'Cloud in Asia' survey conducted in November 2020, while Singapore tops cloud adoption in Asean with nearly nine in 10 organisations in Singapore using cloud services, the issue of cost and security concerns remain.

As most fears centre on possible data loss and breaches of confidentiality with the cloud, the security infrastructure is in place to now instil trust and assurance in customers, delivering a superior customer experience. It is about leveraging cloud systems to help your customers analyse and better understand their business. Through a robust cloud foundation, business leaders can confidently provide reliance and credibility in protecting data as an added business value.

We have a long journey ahead of us in cloud transformation. And the key element that differentiates the path that each enterprise takes is the mindset to embracing change, with the desire to create an impact. Only organisations that remain determined to invest in a strong foundation built upon flexibility, accessibility and security will leave a legacy.

• The writer is the digital enterprise director of BIPO.