FEATURE
FEATURE
AMONG ALL
THE CONFUSING
COMMENTARY
SURROUNDING
THE HYBRID
CLOUD, ONE
THING IS CLEAR –
ORGANISATIONS
MUST STAY
AHEAD OF THE
DATA GAME.
R
egardless of the sector you
work in, you’ll no doubt have
heard the chatter around the
hybrid cloud. However, like
many of your peers, you’ve
probably got more questions than
answers. What is hybrid cloud? Which
way should my business jump? How do I
know what to think about when selecting
cloud strategies? Can I be guaranteed that
it’ll prime my business for the future?
Among all the confusing commentary
surrounding the hybrid cloud, one thing is
clear – organisations must stay ahead of
the data game. The use of data in industry
has now become the most valuable asset
in driving tangible business success.
In fact, according to Forrester, insights
businesses are growing on average more
than 30% annually.
Nowhere is this truer than in the financial
services sector where heightened
customer expectations mean the demand
for fast information is higher than ever.
With security and compliance front and
centre, those who aren’t paying attention
to the possibilities of the hybrid cloud
could be losing out. Or worse, could be
kept out of the game altogether.
Staying competitive
Growth in the financial sector has been
unprecedented in the last five years, as
has the pace of Digital Transformation.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
This growth has meant that the
fintech landscape has quickly become
synonymous with data analytics. fintech
start-ups are changing the way we
think about banking. For consumers,
financial firms must provide their
services in the most timely, satisfying and
straightforward way, across any platform.
Long gone are the days of physical
banking where consumers need to wait for
a bank’s 9am–5pm opening hours.
Against this backdrop, the hybrid model
offers a level of flexibility that is hugely
appealing to financial services firms –
mainly as it incorporates many of their
core applications, which are often run
on-premises. It allows these businesses to
stagger the migration of their applications
to a new cloud architecture, making it more
achievable in both the short and long term,
while allowing them to mitigate any risk
involved during the transition period. From
there, it helps to maximise the potential
of existing investments and deliver
incremental business value effectively.
As financial organisations increase their
adoption of technologies like AI and
Machine Learning, it becomes more
critical for them to invest in a robust data
infrastructure. Doing so means they can
access all forms of data at scale while
integrating and leveraging data science
languages. Also, it allows these businesses
to discover, learn and optimise insights
that result in more efficient business
decision-making.
Graduating to the cloud
Understandably, transforming from legacy
infrastructure to one with a digital-first
focus is no easy task.
The financial sector is particularly delicate
as it’s highly regulated and also has
data security, privacy and protection to
consider. However, this shouldn’t stop
businesses embarking on their journey to
the hybrid cloud. Success ultimately relies
on organisations addressing perennial
challenges first and foremost. These
challenges include breaking down data
silos and addressing the science skills
shortage to change cultural thinking
around using data and analytics in
everything the business does.
Issue 12
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