With DigitalOcean’s cloud optimisation, businesses can strike a balance between achieving short-term gains with long-term goals
Amidst growing economic challenges, businesses are deep into their annual planning strategies. While many companies face budget cuts and hiring freezes, Gartner’s research reveals that four out of five CEOs are increasing their investments in digital technology, betting that the right investments can counter the effects of the recent headwinds. This indicates that digital transformation is viewed as a strategic priority that can help businesses remain competitive and achieve growth amid our increasingly precarious and unpredictable market.
However, while startups and SMBs recognise the value of tech investment in future-proofing their businesses, Gartner reported that more than half of digital initiatives fall short of leadership expectations, with businesses seeing two particular challenging areas: delays in completion (59%) and value realisation (52%). As such, technology leaders must balance short-term gains with long-term goals, harnessing cloud infrastructure optimisation to make their organisations leaner and more agile. By doing so, they can free up resources such as time and effort to focus on long-term strategic business priorities.
While delivering quick results for the bottom line, they must also maintain a long-term technical vision that is aligned with the company’s broader strategic objectives. By freeing up both time and money, leaders can reallocate resources to strategic business priorities, such as product development, customer engagement, and talent management. Ultimately, this approach can help organisations thrive in a rapidly evolving business environment.
In managing their expectations, there are a few things business leaders must look into in order to adopt a more robust cloud infrastructure that will help them achieve short-term gains while also working towards long-term goals.
How can infrastructure costs be lower and more predictable?
As an organisation grows, the costs for cloud infrastructures are also likely to increase. This is because cloud providers typically charge users based on usage which means companies are often billed by the hour, these charges can fluctuate from month to month, especially during periods of high traffic which can lead to unexpected surges, and therefore higher costs. These fluctuations make it difficult to plan on an annual basis and cloud service bills can be complex and difficult to understand, so it’s worth asking your cloud provider to review both your average costs and any unexpected costs or overages.
By having these conversations with your cloud provider, you can identify areas where you can optimise performance for cost savings. For example, if there are periods of high utilisation followed by periods of lower utilisation, it is likely that computing power is being underutilised during the low utilisation periods. In such cases, dynamic loads may benefit from automation, making use of tools such as Kubernetes, which can save your team time and reduce operational costs. By monitoring your usage and optimising your computing resources, you can reduce your cloud costs and get the most out of your cloud investment.
How can we make cloud infrastructure easier to manage?
All teams encounter technical debt and legacy processes at some point in their operations. To address these issues, it is important for teams to evaluate their organisation’s architecture internally and in partnership with cloud providers. This will help them identify areas where processes can be improved and optimised for better performance.
One potential solution is to explore fully managed services offered by cloud providers. Although this option may come with additional costs, it could save valuable time that can be redirected towards high-value initiatives that were previously impossible due to the maintenance demands of the infrastructure. By freeing up internal teams from infrastructure maintenance, organisations can leverage their expertise in other areas that are essential to their operations.
Furthermore, internal teams can provide valuable feedback on bottlenecks or cultural issues that are hindering processes. Addressing these issues could have a ripple effect across the organisation, leading to improvements in efficiency and productivity.
By taking a comprehensive approach when it comes to identifying areas for improvement, teams can optimise their processes and leverage new technologies and strategies to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment.
How can we increase stability and reliability for customers?
Load times and application uptime can have a significant impact on an organization’s revenue growth or loss. Therefore, it is essential to focus on increasing the stability of your applications, as this can lead to outsized revenue performance.
One critical step towards improving application stability is to evaluate your cloud provider’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) to ensure that it meets your organisation’s needs. Companies should also confirm that the cloud provider’s data backups, network load balancing, autoscaling, failovers, and other fail-safe mechanisms align with your business needs. This will help ensure that your applications are always available to your customers, even during unexpected disruptions.
Internally, you should also identify areas where application resilience can be improved and prioritise those improvements accordingly. This may include investing in new technologies or strategies to enhance your applications’ stability and minimise downtime.
By taking a comprehensive approach to evaluating your applications’ stability, you can optimise your revenue performance and ensure that your customers have a seamless experience with your products or services.
Are there ways to reduce development time with automation?
Cloud computing has enabled development teams to move faster, but automation can take these improvements even further. By implementing tools like Git for version control, CI/CD pipelines for quick updates, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for provisioning resources, teams can free up significant time and focus on developing high-quality products that meet their business needs and goals.
Cloud providers can also provide valuable guidance on best practices for automation based on their experience and expertise. By working closely with your cloud provider, you can identify the most effective automation processes to implement within your organisation. This will help your teams quickly resolve bugs, release new features, and provide a better customer experience.
Moreover, automation can help streamline development processes and ensure consistent, high-quality results. It can also help teams stay up to date with the latest technologies and industry trends, giving them a competitive edge.
By leveraging automation and working with your cloud provider to identify best practices, your organisation can accelerate its development processes, improve quality, and ultimately deliver better products and services to your customers.
Casting a vision for the business
After identifying areas for optimisation in the current architecture, it is essential for technology leaders to communicate their vision to the organisation’s leadership. By articulating the anticipated value and timeframes for the proposed optimisations, leaders can begin laying the foundation for what’s possible.
To establish priorities and develop a clear strategy for technology investments, it is necessary to work across the organisation and gather input from various stakeholders. This can help ensure that the technology investments align with the business’s goals and deliver tangible benefits. Moreover, by prioritising investments that deliver business value, technology leaders can cast a technical vision for their organisation that inspires and excites their teams in 2023 onward. This vision should incorporate the latest trends and emerging technologies, while also addressing the organisation’s unique challenges and opportunities.
Effective communication, collaboration, and strategic planning are key to achieving this vision and driving technological innovation within the organisation. By leveraging these best practices, technology leaders can help their teams stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional value to their customers.
Source: e27
