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Est 2009 Issue 29 - 2020
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30 July - 6 August 2020
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Inner City Gazette
Cloud support for SMEs
Cloud computing enables the smallest of businesses to access the reliable power and expand their business across Africa and the world Manda Banda
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Amazon Web Services SA director Prabashni Naidoo
mazon Web Services (AWS) supports entrepreneurs and start-ups by providing offerings to innovate, scale up or down as much as they need to, and paying only for what is consumed. AWS offerings do not require any upfront investment, every start-up and SME can get started quickly on their cloud journey. Any business with an internet connection can gain access to the same technology infrastructure that was previously only available to the world’s largest enterprises. If ideas don’t work out, they can shut them down without any wasted investments. Amazon Web Services SA director Prabashni Naidoo said AWS provides services to help any business accelerate innovate, build new products and services, and launch applications as well as scale at any stage of their business. “At the core of their business, nowadays start-ups need to have a cloud strategy in place. In today’s competitive business landscape, migrating business systems to the cloud offers advantages such as agility, cost savings and elasticity,” Naidoo said. Leveraging the right solutions and services enables the small players to compete with the big players as cloud computing has evened the playing field. Larger enterprises which typically have the budget for sophisticated technologies
to streamline their business processes had more technological advantage. Cloud computing enables the smallest of businesses to access the reliable power and expand their business across Africa and the world. Naidoo added: “To help grow the next generation of entrepreneurs across the African continent AWS introduced the AWS Activate Programme, providing technology resources to help start-ups in Johannesburg, Accra, Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi. In addition it offers start-ups access to cloud computing infrastructure, and helps them leverage AWS services to innovate and succeed while optimising performance and keeping costs down. Working with the venture capital community, angel investors, accelerators and incubators, AWS helps startups get started on the cloud platform. This includes business support, AWS credits, coaching and mentorship, in-person technical support and resources to help start-ups launch their businesses and go global.” One such accelerator is SW7 which aims to support the early growth of about 4 000 to 5 000 businesses in the next five years; the longest running tech accelerator platform in South Africa. SW7 helps tech startups by providing business growth support, without requiring equity in exchange. With the largest tech mentor pool in Africa, of more than 100 CEOs, the accelerator has benefitted over 300 tech businesses to date. Together with AWS, the company
launched the first of its kind Virtual Business Accelerator for B2B tech businesses in Africa. An example of a start-up which has leveraged AWS to ensure the success of its unique business model is Pineapple, an insurance provider operating by means of a mobile app platform that provides users with a unique insurance offering. Using the Pineapple app, users upload pictures of items for cover, instantly getting a quotation and in little time, their items are insured. Pineapple uses AWS services such as Amazon EC2 for secure, resizable compute capacity. AWS has allowed Pineapple to manage high load requests. Additionally, solutions like AWS Lambda let them run code without provisioning or managing servers. Pineapple pays only for the compute time they consume; there is no charge when their code is not running. Another showcase of start-ups leveraging the AWS Cloud is iHouzit, an online property and lifestyle services that provides consumers with an integrated shopping experience from a wide variety of premium products and trusted services. iHouzit built its e-commerce platform on Amazon Route 53. Naidoo said that leveraging cloud technology is one way of cementing a successful digital future for start-ups and AWS is providing them with support at every stage of their business in order to increase their chances of success. Intelligentcio