EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

LORNA HARDIE , REGIONAL DIRECTOR , VMWARE

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Fundamentally , organisations require modern applications capable of unlocking the true value of the data at their disposal . Strong relationships between organisations and their technology partners are critical . Most businesses in a competitive landscape want to remain solely focused on maintaining growth and not be stuck in the bits and bytes of their cloud transformation . This is where refocusing on Business Continuity software will be a key step . It is one thing to embrace Digital Transformation . Still , if the underlying organisational systems and processes are not in place that supports newer technologies , then their sustainability will always remain in question .

Companies across MEA faced significantly accelerated timelines for Digital Transformation projects last year . For example , many retail and consumer goods businesses had to start delivering complete e-commerce sales fulfilment virtually overnight . The same was true for public sector institutions forced to support fully remote operations for day-to-day educational and government functions . Those in the financial services industry needed to account for a struggling economy ’ s challenges while competing for business amid a rise in online payment and government subsidy programmes . Media and entertainment businesses faced similar competition for a public ’ s attention that increased time spent streaming media while largely confined to their homes .

The central theme tying this together is the cloud ’ s value and the need to embrace digital business models .

Even though this is nothing new , companies who have been hesitant to transform their operations to become more cloud-centric can no longer afford to sit on the fence . The realities of the pandemic made the extended timelines for this transformation irrelevant . This is especially the case when it comes to Business Continuity policies . The cloud enables businesses to fund strategic IT projects with operational expense . While this affords ’ flexibility depends on each company ’ s approach to cloud financial management , it is now a critical building block as businesses approach the new normal . Therefore , any Business Continuity policy must reflect the cloud as a central component that serves as the means to remain operational despite uncertain external conditions .

The most common side effects of increased public cloud usage is a lack of standardisation for configuration . The cloud ’ s distributed nature can make companies move faster , enabling anyone to access the resources they need on demand . However , this also prevents security teams from fully understanding how these resources are configured , whether these configurations expose cloud accounts or sensitive data to the public or how these implications may affect industry regulations compliance . This security awareness must be integrated into the Business Continuity policy to ensure that data remains protected regardless of the platform used , the cloud environment adopted or the solutions that run on top of these layers to empower a distributed workforce .

The strength of any Business Continuity policy can be measured in terms of how it easily can be adapted during unanticipated market dynamics or global events . This makes digital foundation technologies so crucial as is the innovation required to support evolving business use cases , customer demands and technical requirements .

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