Leveraging the Cloud to Evolve Alongside the Market

The agility and flexibility of cloud services allowed Mexican companies to adapt their business models to the undeniable rise of a digital economy that necessitated an accelerated route-to-market during the COVID-19 pandemic. The observable success of early adopters has cemented the role of cloud computing in business strategy formation, which should seek alignment with the company's business model so companies can effectively evolve alongside the market, according to industry leaders. 

“Cloud migration is not an overnight accomplishment, as discovered by premature adopters. The identification of business opportunities should precede the selection of a cloud service provider to verify that it coincides with its business model,” said Sergio Sanchez, Country Manager and LATAM Sales Lead, Snowflake.

The way companies look at cloud services is changing more rapidly than ever given the potential for exponential digital growth these services enabled during the pandemic. The technological sector and companies continue to incorporate the cloud into their business operations and, with it, a whole transformation that leads to modernized solutions. Through the transition, organizations are transforming themselves into digital businesses, as IT leaders become catalysts for change by modernizing solutions enabled by cloud technology. Beyond savings and an accelerated route-to-market, companies with cloud computing services have discovered that “they can also test consumer-facing products and services faster and augment processing and storage capacity as needed,” said Rodrigo Martinelli, Vice President and General Manager LATAM, Rackspace Technology.

Altogether, “cloud computing is essentially a leverageable asset that allows companies to transform customer experience, increase their market reach, discover additional business avenues and reconfigure their business models correspondingly,” said Oscar Parra, Managing Director Mexico, Genesys. 

On the other hand, consumer and enterprise tolerance regarding technology’s responsiveness and effectiveness has lowered since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Alexis Langagne, Senior Vice President, Softtek USA.  Users now expect immediate satisfaction and fewer problems, representing a new problem for companies trying to integrate a new digital reality. The longer companies take to incorporate cloud and other digital solutions, the stronger competition becomes, making it more difficult for companies to target newcomers. This has created a sense of urgency among laggards; nevertheless, this is not a process that should be approached haphazardly, industry leaders agreed. 

“Cloud migration should be done in stages to avoid unnecessary costs, circumvent security risks and allow operating talent to build up the necessary skills to operate, maintain and freely manipulate cloud infrastructures,” said Sanchez. 

Talent is often overlooked, but primarily important considering that the slowest part of a company’s modernization process is often its workforce, which serves to underline the importance of change-management. Consequently, the longer it takes for a company to migrate towards cloud computing, the longer it will take for the organization's talent to close an already widening knowledge gap. Meanwhile, early adopters with experienced talent are already considering multi-cloud infrastructures as a means of diversifying their assets across platforms, said Martinelli. However, despite counting with the intelligence and know-how, many companies lack the manpower to implement their strategies, an existential problem plaguing companies across industries.

“A lack of specialized talent is one of the greatest challenges to cloud migration in the country, and it is likely limiting the growth potential of companies across industries,” said Martinelli.

Mexico and Latin America are at a unique inflection point and have the potential to become global centers of technology development and innovation, a realization that rests on public and private efforts to generate the talent needed to bridge the gap with other global technology leaders. As such, companies should also be attempting to anticipate how they will adapt their cloud infrastructures to the rise of emerging and disrupting technologies like blockchain, web 3 and the metaverse, among others. The capacity to anticipate their impact will help companies gain greater clarification on both their business models and their supporting digital infrastructures.