Standing Tall: Improving Organizational Resilience with Cloud Technology

We received – on a global scale – an unsolicited lesson in organizational resilience and its importance. It’s because most organizations had it that they were able to wade through the murky waters of lockdowns and ad hoc remote working arrangements.

The pandemic has accelerated our journey towards adopting digital technologies and cloud solutions. This has immensely affected the speed of work that is being done. Projects that usually take up months or a year are now being completed within a very short period of time.

Why is organizational resilience important?

Organizational resilience refers to the ability of the organization to bounce back after any unforeseen event like a natural disaster, social unrest, corrupted data, cyberattacks, and – let’s address the elephant in the room – a pandemic.Economic downturn is another crucial crisis that has the ability to leave under-prepared companies devastated. Last year alone, the COVID-19 crisis put over 7 million small businesses at risk of closing down. 

Disaster recovery is the framework to handle unpredicted events, but resilience is a more all-rounded concept. Business transformation is one part of organizational resilience. Companies must put 70% of their resources for innovation and to build efficiency outside of their core services. Your company must always be ready not only for unforeseen events but also for constant change, as it is necessary to remain relevant.

Improving Organizational Resilience with the Cloud 

The crucial role of an organization’s IT infrastructure with Cloud technology cannot be overstated. It plays an important part in an organization’s resilience. It ensures that the system still stands no matter what emergencies come its way.

But just like any other new technology, cloud doesn’t come without risks though most of these risks seem to be benign. Organizations and decision-makers must pay special attention to the large scale transactions, the open architecture and multiple vendors. In these scenarios, they need to take certain steps to make themselves resilient. They need to devise comprehensive strategies to handle everything including day-to-day management and provisioning. 

So how do you improve your organizational resilience with the help of cloud technology?

Understand the Demanding Workloads 

There should be enough transparency into the types of workload residing in the cloud, especially the customer-facing one. For example, if an ecommerce application runs on cloud, it is imperative to ensure that the app is always available. In case of any errors or if it stops running, it will have a direct impact on the reputation of the company, not to mention the direct effect it will have on your finances. Hence, organizations should always ensure that these applications are always running and are on their best performance. 

Adopting Digitization

Research suggests companies with strong reliable digital platforms can create 7% more revenue than their peers. It has shown to improve communication and overall employee engagement and productivity. Since a digital workspace requires cloud, this can be used as an opportunity to increase your organizational resilience and to increase the company’s overall performance. 

Legacy Infrastructure 

Another aspect that brings its own challenges is legacy infrastructure. These systems are often in need of replacements. The primary concern would have to be identifying points of failure that can directly impact the running of the infrastructure. Once this has been done, it is of utmost importance to make sure that the end of support systems are functioning properly since the original processors are no longer supporting it. It is also necessary to ensure that all systems are up to date with the patches. 

Choose the Right Cloud Provider  

Every cloud provider has their own strengths and weaknesses. It is necessary to choose a provider that is closely aligned with the company’s workload and applications. Some organizations also opt for a multi cloud approach where different workload can be handled by different providers. Choosing the right cloud provider can have a noteworthy impact on your organization’s performance because you would be outsourcing something very important and close to your business’s objective. Hence, the right cloud provider has the ability to improve your organization’s overall performance and increase resilience. 

Strategizing for Business Continuity

Having strategies that can address security sensitivities of the mechanisms in downtime is essential for any organization in order to mitigate risks. Best plans for this include quick recovery in the face of such situations. Choosing a cloud can ensure connectivity at all times and reduce the downtime significantly, while increasing your organizational resilience towards cloud. 

The right IT infrastructure ensures that everything runs smoothly and that the businesses can bounce back as quickly as possible without wasting any resources or time. If you wish to know more about Cloud, contact Econz Cloud.