Business Drivers

Business drivers are the fundamental reasons prompting CEOs and business directors to adopt cloud computing. Their focus lies in harnessing cloud computing to enhance service agility, accelerate service innovation, improve service continuity, expand market reach, ensure regulatory compliance, foster sustainability, and ultimately improve the enterprise's core competitiveness and business outcomes.

• Enhance service agility

  Service agility refers to the ability to quickly respond to market changes and customer needs. In a rapidly changing market environment, enterprises need to have agile service capabilities to maintain a competitive edge.

  • Fast deployment of service systems: Cloud platforms provide a highly flexible and scalable infrastructure. Enterprises can quickly deploy systems and services to shorten the time to market.
  • Auto scaling: Cloud computing's elasticity allows enterprises to dynamically adjust resources to meet service requirements, especially unexpected spikes, during high-demand periods.
  • Agile development and iteration: Cloud platforms support DevOps practices, accelerating the software development cycle and allowing quick iteration and update of service systems.
• Accelerate service innovation

  Service innovation is the key for enterprises to obtain new growth and maintain competitiveness. Cloud computing provides enterprises with innovative platforms, technologies, and tools, greatly lowering the innovation threshold and accelerating the innovation of products, services, business models, service processes, and operational modes.

  • Easier access to advanced technologies: Cloud service providers provide advanced technologies such as AI, large models, big data, IoT, and virtual humans. Enterprises can quickly use these technologies for innovation without building them by themselves.
  • Lower technical thresholds: Cloud services simplify the application of complex technologies. Enterprises can focus on service innovation without worrying about the complexity of underlying technologies.
  • Global cooperation: Cloud service providers have built a global ecosystem partner network, enabling enterprises to innovate with global partners and developers and expand global businesses.
• Improve service continuity

  Service continuity refers to the ability to continuously and stably provide products and services in the event of various faults, external attacks, or emergencies. The high availability and security of cloud platforms and cloud services can ensure the stable running of service systems and reduce operational risks.

  • High-availability architecture: Cloud service providers provide multi-region and multi-AZ deployment modes, which support cross-region DR and backup to improve the reliability of service systems.
  • Automatic failover: Cloud platforms have an automatic detection and failover mechanism. When a hardware or software fault occurs, they can quickly restore services with the minimal downtime.
  • Security protection capability: Cloud service providers possess extensive expertise in security protection. They offer end-to-end security technology systems, comprehensive management processes, and well-defined specifications, supported by a robust team of security experts. This ensures the continuous protection of cloud platforms. As a result, public clouds provide stronger information security assurance compared to most in-house IT teams within organizations.
• Expand market reach

  Expanding businesses to global markets is an important way for enterprises to increase revenue. With the global layout of cloud service providers, enterprises can effectively enter new markets, expand their business scope, and reach more customers.

  • Global deployment: Cloud service providers have cloud data centers around the world. Enterprises can quickly deploy services in target markets. The technological barriers and the time required to enter these new markets have been dramatically lowered.
  • Local services: Cloud platforms offer local language support and services that comply with local regulations, enabling enterprises to swiftly adapt to the demands of local markets.
  • Lower entry costs: Enterprises do not need to build data centers or purchase hardware devices locally, alleviating initial investment pressures and lowering market entry costs.
  • Better customer experience: Low-latency and high-performance services are provided through nearby deployment and optimized network architecture, improving customer satisfaction.
• Ensure regulatory compliance

  In today's rapidly changing business environment, compliance has become a key factor for enterprises to survive and develop. As regulations and standards around the world become increasingly strict and complex, enterprises need to ensure that their operations comply with local laws, regulations, and industry standards to avoid legal risks, financial losses, and reputation damage. With the compliance support services provided by cloud service providers, enterprises can effectively reduce compliance risks and focus on core business development.

  • Global compliance support: Cloud service providers' data centers and services around the world comply with local regulations and industry standards, such as Compliance General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Enterprises can use the compliance certification and services of the cloud platform to quickly meet compliance requirements in different markets.
  • Local compliance services: Cloud platforms provide local compliance services, such as data residency, data sovereignty, and data encryption, to help enterprises meet compliance requirements in specific regions. For example, some countries require that data be stored within the country. Cloud service providers can provide local data centers and services that meet the requirements.
  • Higher compliance efficiency: Cloud platforms provide automated compliance tools, such as security audit, vulnerability scanning, and access control, to help enterprises manage compliance automatically. This helps improve the efficiency and reduce the risk of human errors.
• Foster sustainability

  Sustainability is an important aspect of enterprises' social responsibility and long-term development. Cloud computing helps reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, enabling enterprises to meet their social responsibility commitments and promote sustainable, green development.

  • Lower energy consumption and carbon emissions: Cloud data centers often leverage advanced energy management and cooling technologies, achieving a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.2. This results in significantly lower energy consumption and carbon emissions compared to self-built data centers.
  • Optimized resource utilization: Cloud computing improves the utilization of servers and storage devices through virtualization and resource pooling, reducing the demand for physical devices.
  • Environmental-friendly innovation: The digital technologies of cloud platforms facilitate the creation of green solutions, such as smart cities, intelligent transportation systems, and online collaboration tools. These innovations contribute to environmental protection and energy conservation.
  • Environmental compliance: Cloud service providers comply with strict environmental standards and regulations. Enterprises can use cloud services to meet environmental compliance requirements.

The business drivers of cloud transformation cover the requirements of key business areas such as agility, innovation, continuity, market expansion, and sustainable development. By understanding the business drivers of cloud transformation, enterprises can:

• Formulate clear cloud transformation strategic objectives to ensure that the cloud transformation strategy is closely aligned with the business strategy.
• Gain the support of management and employees, align their perspectives, and collaboratively drive cloud transformation efforts.
• Maximize business value, improve market competitiveness, and promote sustainable development.