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Data centres and cloud services: A big step towards digital transformation
Dr. Roland Petrasch
Digital transformation in general and AI in particular is one of the most important factors to become or stay competitive – the reinvention of the own business (model) has become a new normality. Customer- and market-driven innovation is a key success factor which re-quires a digital infrastructure – as we all know.
During the last few decades, cloud-based solutions that are part of a multi-cloud infra-structure replaced on-site data centres. Nowadays, even mission-critical data and applications are “in the cloud”. Initial concerns about security, independence and costs have given way to the realization that cloud-based solutions lead to better security, cost reduction and greater flexibility.
With the development of AI, it is once again clear that without a cloud-based infrastruc-ture and a cloud data centre, it will not be possible to benefit from the new possibilities of AI. For companies whose core business is not information technology, it does not seem realistic to operate a self- installed, on-premise of a data centre and an application landscape – digital transformation that includes AI-based applications requires a professional data centre and cloud services.
However, this is just the beginning: 360degree data view and AI-based business intelligence that leads to a better customer experience and efficiency means that just copying all data into a cloud data warehouse and trying to run more or less “intelligent” queries in the data are certainly the recipe for failure.
It was always and still is true that the data (in a data centre) can only be used when the struc-ture and quality is sufficient or better excel-lent. Data is organised in a semantic data model so that data analytics and business intelligence applications can “make sense” out of it. Even if we have an AI-based analytics application, a (human) decisionmaker needs to understand, comprehend, and trust the results. Accountability is the keyword; an explanation from the CEO after filing for bank-ruptcy that sounds like “I didn’t do anything wrong; my AI told me to do it … how could I have known?” is probably not helpful for anyone.
Digital transformation opens the door to better and new business models – a digital agenda, data centre and cloud services are crucial success factors.
PAVING THE WAY FOR DIGITAL TRANSFOR-MATION IN THAILAND
The Venn Diagram for Digital Transformation provides more details about a successful digital agenda that can be used by large enter-prises as well as SMEs in Thailand. Operational excellence in terms of stable and high-quality business processes that are customer- and service-oriented represents one main precon-dition. But what does that mean specifically? ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and other application software systems can help only if there are seamless workflows across these systems that supports the users during each part of the business process. Realistically, a cloud infrastructure is, in many cases, the way to go.
A similar situation exists for data: During the whole business process, data quality must be ensured – workarounds and manual by-passes for bad software applications like the “misuse” of data fields due to poor designed forms on a user interface are poisonous for data quality and business intelligence.
However, before all these details come into play, the business goals, a (realistic) digital strategy, and the need and requirements of the customers, business partners, and employees need to be clarified. Just using a cloud-based data centre, or an ERP system alone is a tool-oriented activity that should be guided by this picture – The digital strategy and the digital roadmap.
We call this approach an accelerated and enabling Digital Transformation, because it leads to very fast results after a few weeks or months and it enables an enterprise to setup a sustainable digitalization culture where new goals, innovative ideas, and the latest technol-ogies can be considered and integrated into the existing digital roadmap.
Software application management and integration, enterprise data quality, comprehensible AI-based business intelligence, seamless UX (user experience) – the list goes on. All these “digital essentials” use a cloud-infrastructure. To leverage the possibilities of these new technologies, a digital partner with a holistic view on the business and its digital strategy is needed.
In conclusion, companies not only in Thailand need to bring trends like digital transfor-mation, industry 4.0, smart services, and factories and infrastructure like cloud-based data centres, and applications and services on an affordable, doable, and operational level; this is necessary in order to improve and reinvent themselves in terms of their profitability, competitiveness, sustainability, and social and environmental responsibilities. We are looking forward to be a digital partner for all industries, domains and company sizes.
Dr. Roland Petrasch
Digital Transformation Consulting
AMDIS Media and IT Services Ltd.,
Pathum Thani, Thailand
Contact details:
Mrs Sudarat Artpukpung
Sales and Marketing
AMDIS Media and IT Services Ltd.
Tel: +66 92 629 5529
