The world is always changing and shifting from one technology to another. When people first coined the term “Industrial Revolution”” back in 1760 (or thereabout), no-one could have imagined that there would be more than one industrial revolution. Now, we’re in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution, and it’s fundamentally changed how we do business.
The Digital Revolution has improved our ability to communicate and find valuable information. It has also and made globalisation possible which has increased business productivity.
According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum and author of “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” :
“The new age is differentiated by the speed of technological breakthroughs, the pervasiveness of scope, the disruptiveness of its technologies, and the tremendous impact of new systems.
The resulting shifts and disruptions mean that we live in a time of great promise and great peril. The world has the potential to connect billions more people to digital networks, dramatically improve the efficiency of organisations and even manage assets in ways that can help regenerate the natural environment, potentially undoing the damage of previous industrial revolutions.” [sic]
When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the new age is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. Trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, (ML), nanotechnology, and quantum computing are changing the way we live and work.
Shift Thinking
The Digital Revolution created an architecture where information can be shared all around the world. Access to global digital platforms improved the way we research, market, sell and distribute, and helped companies improve quality, cost, and speed of delivery.
But some companies failed to take full advantage of the far-reaching benefits digital technology has to offer and were left behind or worse, ceased to exist.
Sears Failed to Act
Thirty years ago, Sears was America’s largest retailer by a significant margin, and as dominant in retail as Amazon is today. With a massive customer base, vast distribution network and enormous clout with vendors, Sears could have been a colossal e-commerce contender if it had embraced technology sooner.
When Sears finally launched an e-commerce site, it had to rebuild many fundamental elements from scratch. Coupled with scores of store closures that sustained the retailer’s ”bricks and clicks” strategy, e-commerce sales fell by 50%, to $1.3 billion by 2017.
Netflix and Others Saw the Writing on the Wall
In 2000 the founder of Netflix proposed a business agreement with Blockbuster which would see Netflix run Blockbuster’s brand online, and Blockbuster promoting Netflix in its stores.
The Netflix CEO got laughed out of the room.
Blockbuster went bust in 2010, and Netflix currently has over 150 million paid users around the world.
Uber took advantage of new technologies and disrupted an established industry by offering a more straightforward online solution that is more affordable and accessible to a larger population.
Shift NEEDS to Happen
There is clear evidence that it is no longer business as usual. Change is happening in every sector. New technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are enabling innovative companies to oust well-established companies faster and easier than ever before.
The transition from the third to the fourth industrial revolution, like before, is forcing companies to re-examine the way they think and remain relentless in their pursuit of innovation to stay competitive.
The Value of Cloud Storage
The unprecedented amount of data that companies can now collect and store, provides unique opportunities to meet the most specialised customer needs and create entirely new business models.
But with big data sets comes a new host of issues. It is, therefore, imperative that companies who collect customer data securely store that data.
In the olden days (around 2006 or so), companies would traditionally have stored data on an in-house server. But thanks to services like AWS and Microsoft Azure (and a host of other companies offering cloud services), it is cheaper ad easier to store your data online.
By moving to the AWS or Azure Cloud, you can increase your organisation’s security posture while simultaneously improving scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
According to an IDC whitepaper “Assessing the Risk: Yes, the Cloud Can Be More Secure Than Your On-Premises Environment,” written in July 2015, you can achieve a better security posture than available using an on-premises solution by moving your workloads to the Cloud.
Cloud storage helps enable organisations like yours to achieve high levels of security by allowing for the same, or often even greater, visibility into your workloads, as well as access to a suite of tools and services to meet your organisation’s unique needs.
Avoid Downtime and Retain your Customer Base
With the acceleration of innovation, you can’t afford ISP outages that cause your on-prem server to go down, especially if your server is public-facing (like an application or website). Maintaining an on-premise server can result in downtime and loss of revenue, which could compromise the way that you do business in the near future.
A recent survey found that if someone lands on your site and the site is down, they are not likely to return to your site. This is especially true if it’s the first time they visit your site.
Another problem with an on-prem server is that if your head office goes down or file server crashes, then none of your remote employees or other locations will be able to work. And while a generator or a pile of UPSs might seem like a viable option, Cloud storage will usually work out to be a cheaper (and more secure) option.
Time to Migrate
Silicon Overdrive has a dedicated team of certified Cloud Engineers who have been trained to help you on your cloud adoption journey.
Although every business is unique, many face similar IT challenges as demand increases and their on-premise Exchange server approaches its End of Life.
Are you ready to join the revolution? Contact us if you want to know more about our bespoke IT solutions that will keep you on the front-line.