Build your enterprise cloud strategy on multi-dimensions: Vinod Bhat, CIO, Vistara – TATA SIA Airlines Ltd

In the aviation industry we need to be very agile as the demands constantly keep fluctuating. During the Covid period we had to act very quickly, we needed to address the market demand, the customer requirements and the regulatory requirements. And, there was not much time anyways; if there was a change to be made, it had to be executed in minimal time. The aviation industry was amongst the worst hit and did not have much cushion to hang on to. However, luckily, Vistara was on the cloud and for the past seven years we have been in a multi cloud environment.

Similarly, some other things that we learned during Covid were; there has been a massive shift of trends within industries that was changing at a great pace. For example: The whole customer experience, including touchless services being offered. Many of you must have also observed that most of the services have been moved from an offline to an online mode.

We had to come up with various solutions; Some solutions which are going to stay during Covid, some of them are going to be mid-term and some of the solutions are going to be long term also. And this happened in, more or less all industries. Similarly, in most industries, if you observe the value chain, supply chain, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, in every vertical, every offerings and solutions have changed. 

Changes in the aviation industry: 

• The customer expectation in the aviation industry has really gone up to the next level. 
• There is a lot of analytics happening behind the scenes and a lot of insights being driven so that the business can take proactive and productive decisions. 
• There is an increased focus on sustainability because there is a lot more fuel usage in the aviation industry.
• There is a complex distribution landscape because airlines are just one part of the ecosystem in aviation. In addition you have airports, OEMs, product vendors, fleets which are growing, there is a dependency on boeing, airbuses etc, etc. In short, it is a dynamic industry and has been changing on multiple fronts. 

Enterprise cloud strategy  

When you build a cloud strategy, should it be one dimensional or multidimensional?  According to me, it should be multidimensional. And for that very same reason companies should have an enterprise cloud strategy.

Why it should be multidimensional:

• Better flexibility and scalability

Going for a multidimensional strategy gives the flexibility of automation and real-time syncing of data. Also, a multi-cloud environment gives better scalability by facilitating your organisation to either scale up or scale down storage requirements based on the current demand scenarios.

• Brings agility to IT ecosystem

Implementing a multidimensional cloud strategy is a complex task and very often companies face a hard time with legacy systems, on-prem resources and hardware suppliers. By ensuring that you select the right cloud provider with optimum experience and expertise one can achieve workload mobility and agility between various cloud platforms.  

• Building stability and resilience

A multidimensional cloud strategy allow a product to have distributed computing capabilities that make products more stable for users. It helps to have a resilient system which is far more secured with disaster recovery capabilities, disk failure, power outage, or any form of glitches during natural calamities. A multidimensional cloud strategy always helps to recreate your IT resources and save in a location away from the disaster-affected location.

• Cost factor

Cost is one of the most critical factors. And please note: If one does not use the cloud properly then they might end up paying much more than required. Multidimensional cloud strategy can be a good option for minimising your IT related spendings. 

Most organisations that rely on on-prem infrastructure and data centres need multiple servers to cater to the client demands during peak usage period. And during peak demand times a company may invest in more servers, while only a few are required to meet their regular demands. 

However, a company with a multidimensional cloud strategy can help in reduced spendings, and rely on public cloud vendors to provide extra capacity during times of surged demand. 

• Security aspect

Usually the cloud service providers take responsibility for the security of their particular infrastructure, and also ensure the security of your organisational data resources. The organisational IT staff must assess the changing security requirements of your network because one’s cloud infrastructure and software usually take much changes over a period of time.  

Customer experience

One of the most crucial parts of your cloud strategy is your customer experience. If one has a B2C business it is probably your end customers and if you are in e-commerce strategy then your campaigns are very important, and if you are purely on the sales side then one will only target on the segment strategies. Also, one will be very careful about hyper personalisation. 

It is a new trend that has been picking up; one does not want to be compared with anyone, rather being in a segment of one. Where the solutions, data offerings, and cloud being exclusively designed to suit one’s requirement.        

KPIs

The key performance indicators (KPIs) are generally used to measure goal attainment and progress. An advance agreement on the relevance of the following cloud computing KPIs can assist in solution/business alignment in a seamless manner. 

Some important points to consider in enterprise cloud strategy:

• Enterprise cloud strategy doesn’t mean that you need to move everything to the public cloud.  
• Hybrid cloud strategy may emerge as your core strategy
• Edge Computing and Edge- Cloud may work better for you. 
• Understand your industry or business context- post Covid.
• Build your enterprise cloud strategy on multi-dimensions
• One size strategy doesn’t fit all. Figure out your own crystal ball and work out the solutions accordingly.
• It is journey- monitor and track progress against business KPIs
• Use your enterprise cloud strategy as a differentiator.