Amardeep Sharma, CTO & Director, Praruh Technologies Ltd, on navigating a way through cloud-led infrastructure.
India’s economy is seeing an unprecedented technological overhaul in its ways of operating in the contemporary digital era. From manufacturing majors to banking giants to PSUs, firms are revisiting their tech-led operations to be agile in quickly responding to highly dynamic consumer expectations, regulatory policies, and new competition entering the market day in and day out. At the core of the overhaul, the clear shift remains infrastructural strategies by companies being heavily cloud-led instead of depending on the obsolete tech of data centres.
For CIOs, the shift is not about experimentation but execution with intent. Let’s deep dive into knowing what India Inc. must focus on while shifting towards cloud-based infrastructure.
Aligning Cloud Strategy with Business Outcomes
Adoption of cloud tech is not merely an upgrade in technology but an opportunity to align it with business strategies, increase scalability during a surge in demand, seamlessly launch new products/services, and reduce time-to-market for virtual products.
From enabling seamless, safe payments to assessing AI-backed consumer insights and strategies to expand into new markets, a robust underlying infrastructure that scales without friction is needed. Cloud helps enterprises when it is integrated with the firm’s strategy. CIOs must hence switch gears from “migration targets” to “business acceleration metrics”.
Governance, Security and Regulatory Readiness
With the rise in adoption of the quick, easy virtual environment provided by cloud services, the intricacies are amplified likewise. Recent developments considering data protection and localisation have led governance to the forefront of technology decision-making. A cloud-led model demands a strong governance framework to protect data and compliance with regulatory models from the first day.
The Zero Trust principle must be mandated to verify identity at all times for foolproof access management. Maintaining strong encryption standards, monitoring continuously and keeping a real-time threat intelligence matrix in check are now a need rather than an add-on feature.
Enterprises that turn a blind eye to governance tend to land in compliance risks and escalating costs. The ones that use cloud services supported with policy-driven checks have a protected and sustainable foundation for growth.
Depending on a single cloud can lead Indian enterprises to face the risk of downtime, compliance concerns, etc. An ideal approach is to adopt a hybrid multi-cloud model for optimal workload management and reduced downtime for seamless business continuity.
“The ones that use cloud services supported with policy-driven checks have a protected and sustainable foundation for growth.” ~ Amardeep Sharma
Getting people and culture cloud-native ready
Technology transformation without cultural evolution is unfinished. Cloud-led infrastructure demands novel skills like automation, security expertise and performance optimisation. Continuous training and upskilling about new-age technology based on cloud-native infrastructure must hence be prioritised.
Likewise, adopting a DevOps culture nurtures partnership between development and operations teams that, in turn, helps in sharing accountability and move the organisation from reactive IT to innovation-backed IT.
With advances in cloud usage in scaling up operations, diligent cost management becomes imperative. Investing in a FinOps model enables companies to balance innovation with financial responsibility. Transparent cost visibility, workload optimisation and mindful selection of vendors translate into cloud investments generating prolonged value instead of uncontrolled spend.
A Strategic Necessity
Adopting cloud-led infrastructure is not merely an IT overhaul but a boon to help homegrown enterprises to attain prolonged competitiveness. Success depends on spotless governance, architectural modernization, employee readiness and structured financial management.
For CIOs, the mandate is clear – nurturing a cloud strategy that is secure, flexible and business-aligned from the outset. The ones who approach cloud with clarity and purpose will not only benefit from the digital transformation but also be the torchbearers of new-age cloud-native tech adoption.