Trusted data is the buttress for the well-being of our political and economic systems. As a result, enterprises need the freedom to choose from European digital providers committed to secure, transparent and socially and environmentally responsible solutions. As a trusted cloud partner, Orange Business contributes to the European Commission on several projects, including the Gaia-X program to develop a data infrastructure to ensure European data sovereignty.
What does it mean to be cloud first?
With cloud-first strategies, enterprises move all or most of their operations to the cloud. There are various reasons enterprises choose this route. For some, it is agility and scalability. Others do it to get services online faster. Many are adopting multicloud to cherry-pick the best cloud capabilities. A recent report estimated that 89% of enterprises had added multicloud to their cloud strategy.
Cloud-first strategies are becoming commonplace as enterprises look to transform, differentiate and gain a competitive advantage. According to IDC, by 2024, 75% of enterprises will prioritize infrastructure and operational efficiency. This will lead to a fivefold increase in adopting cloud-native architectures for key business applications.
“Cloud is now firmly established as an essential element of a digital-first strategy,” explains Dave McCarthy, Vice President Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services at IDC. “As organizations look to automate operations, deliver rich customer experiences, and launch new products and services, cloud has become the primary accelerator of innovation.”
Aligning cloud strategy with business objectives
A cloud strategy carefully aligned to business outcomes has never been more critical as the cloud is now fundamental to digital transformation. In addition, as enterprises increase their investments in the cloud, the business impact of an overarching cloud strategy is crucial in growing the business’s bottom line.
Unfortunately, it is not as simple as it sounds. Complexity is one of the most cited pain points due to security, compliance, interoperability issues and availability across geographies. There is also an ongoing cloud skills drought, increasing the migration burden.
The adoption of multicloud and cloud native provides the ultimate combination. Cloud native offers rapid change and resilience, opening up innovation. Multicloud delivers best-of-breed capabilities and cost effectiveness. But enterprises today have users, assets and data distributed across the globe. Users need anytime, anywhere access. Clouds must work together securely and be optimized to deliver a superior user experience.
Getting cloud strategy right
Cloud doesn’t come in one size fits all and is not deploy-and-forget technology. Its dynamic nature must be constantly nurtured and continuously monitored to optimize performance and maximize investment. Therefore, enterprises need a multicloud strategy that strikes a balance between public and private options, technology and application demands, availability across regions, interoperability and security.
Cloud is a core pillar to what we call the Evolution Platform, delivering on personalized orchestration, flexible operating models and modularity designed to fit each enterprise’s unique business needs – all in a secure environment.
By seamlessly bringing together cloud along with the other two pillars of the Evolution Platform – connectivity and security – the concept allows for advanced multicloud solutions such as end-to-end monitoring for Orange-provided and third-party services via Service Manage-Watch. This offers optimal services and availability across global infrastructures.
We can advise on the best combination of these three pillars to provide secure, optimized and seamless performance to satisfy your business outcomes as a vendor agnostic company.
Taking the first steps
It does not matter where you are on your cloud journey, we combine network, cloud and cybersecurity capabilities to orchestrate a cloud infrastructure that delivers on business requirements and user experience. We can also help to continuously optimize it to control spending and get the most value from your data.
Our consultancy team will work with key stakeholders to create a transformation strategy that will satisfy both new business opportunities and business objectives, providing the right cloud applications, data and operational capabilities that best fit your enterprise.
Once the strategy has been defined, auditing the applications and services enterprises have in place already, proof of concepts (PoCs) and pilots can be set up to establish which solutions align best with business needs.
Cloud is pivotal to new digital experiences
As Milind Govekar at Gartner explains: “There is no business strategy without a cloud strategy.”Digital transformation is all about using digital building blocks operated through the cloud delivery model to increase efficiencies and drive innovation.
As business models change, so do operations models. As a matter of urgency, enterprises need to put in place a long-term cloud strategy that integrates connectivity and security, allowing them to scale, maintain flexibility and resilience and focus on business operations. It is the enterprises that go down this path that will flourish.
Learn more about how multicloud can help to accelerate your digital transformation, adopt new business models and drive innovation.
Franck is Vice President, Evolution Platform, a new strategic program focused on building the future orchestrated cloud-native infrastructure for our customers to ensure the delivery of real business outcomes. Outside his professional life, Franck enjoys cultural activities such as opera, especially Italian ones, and loves the theater. Sports also figure in his free time, especially cycling, running and skiing.