What questions would retailers like X5 Retail Group, Open, Auchan, and others ask when moving to Cloud4Y?
Retailers are facing tough times. Consumer habits and desires have changed over the past decade. Online competitors are about to catch up.
Generation Z shoppers want a simple and functional profile to receive personalized offers from stores and brands. They use various devices and access points and often lack the desire to interact with staff, unlike the grandmothers who loved visiting the good old markets.
To adapt to the times, retailers should lift their heads from old approaches and pay attention to the cloud.
By leveraging its advantages, they can provide an adequate user experience.
Retail leaders have been present in the market for centuries, surviving recessions and changing trends, but they have not encountered crises like today's.
For instance, in one of the civilized Western countries, 14 stores close every day.
Inevitably, one must evolve.
Unfortunately, many retailers are held back by outdated infrastructure and legacy systems, not to mention the sysadmin, the director's friend, who is on a high salary.
Legacy systems often hinder progress, and developers have nearly become extinct for some, while new ones are better off learning some Go rather than the obsolete Cobol.
On the other hand, sectors like finance invest heavily in IT, at around 7% of their revenue, emphasizing the fundamental importance of staying at the forefront of technology. Being stingy with such investments means losses for retailers.
Right now, it is essential to harness all the opportunities provided by IT infrastructure in sales. Amazon Go will come to Russia sooner or later. Do we want it to sweep away our beloved Pyaterochka with dear old aunt Klava at the cash register, just as Yandex swept away local taxi drivers?
The decision to deploy IT operations in the cloud can be complex and requires the blessing of business owners.
And they need to know the answers to all the questions that arise. So, what questions should retailers consider before migrating to Cloud4Y?
The first question
How much money are we going to raise from this?
Almost two-thirds of retailers say that migration won't pay off. They need to look at this in more detail from the perspective of long-term investments. Consider what cloud migration will add to their business and what pain points it will resolve.
Today, in retail, cloud solutions significantly reduce costs. The ability to scale massively and offload at least some of the capital expenditures on infrastructure, as well as setup by mouse instead of a team of movers — all of this is really great and saves a lot of time, nerves, and money in the moment.
Companies experience an increase in revenue from outsourcing data storage, computing, and other services to the cloud through a pay-as-you-go model quite rapidly.
The headaches associated with capital expenditures, expensive licenses, software and database support, infrastructure, and unexpected scaling end where cloud services begin.
It is essential for the director to assess the potential losses from the company falling behind and the advantages of breaking ahead:
- The costs of data transfer are incomparable to the costs of updating a fleet of semi-functional old systems. servers.
- While the growth in cloud data volume may take some time, in the cloud you can exactly configure the space and resources you need right now, whether it’s the rush on Black Friday or around New Year's.
- The cost of maintenance changes significantly when it comes to in-house management. By using the cloud, you only pay for what you actually received. No expenses for procurement, relocation, or hiring and firing staff. All of this is included in the cost of cloud services, and it is much cheaper.
The capabilities of the cloud are extensive, but you need a reliable company to help you make the most of them. Today's era is characterized by achieving efficiency through narrow specialization. Professionals in their field are the key to overall prosperity.
The second question
Which applications and data should we start with?
More than one-fifth of retailers have already moved their data and computing to the cloud. The others are already aware of their lag and financial losses. Although some old software is still challenging to migrate, the expansion of resources leads to improved performance.
Auto-scaling resources and performance in the cloud can yield benefits for applications that can distribute load across multiple servers.
Cloud orchestration tools can be used for monitoring and dynamic scaling according to current demands without human involvement.
It makes sense to start migration with applications that are originally designed for the cloud. A gradual migration strategy may suit legacy applications as it allows for minimal changes to the code.
Just remember, there's no rush or need to move everything at once and instantly. Conduct a thorough analysis of the load, determine what to focus on, and then use this as a roadmap to maximize profits from the cloud transition.
The third question
How do we track resources?
Unlike the outdated method of storing data on a static server, the cloud is dynamic and sophisticated. Resource automation and elasticity mean that anyone in your company can take on whatever is needed at the moment. There are also special accounts for business units with pre-allocated resources.
The simplicity of deployment creates certain organizational risks. Security organization, access restrictions to resources, overspending due to resource redundancy, and software compatibility changes.
To avoid all this, retailers should consider operational and management models that would track running applications and make adjustments when there is a shortage or surplus of resources. Without such monitoring, there’s a risk of wasting money on applications that are running uselessly. It’s also better to analyze bills for used applications. This can all be automated, of course.
Resource management is crucial during migration, as every unused resource consumes money and undermines real savings.
Our specialists will help resolve all such issues to benefit any business.
The fourth question
How will we protect the environment?
Transferring applications and data to the cloud does not mean that the owners of this data are relieved of responsibility. Retailers are accountable for the personal data of their customers.
Since the CDPR release in May 2018, all organizations have an additional obligation to comply with certain requirements. Data breaches are highly critical, as there is a legal need to preserve them before the relevant law enforcement agencies. The reputational losses for a cloud provider in such incidents could threaten the closure of the business. This compels us to ensure the highest possible level.
Leading cloud providers offer sound physical servers, protected through a layer of virtualization. With our army of engineers, supporting you and your data is a solved issue.
No cloud provider can guarantee 100%, as it is also part of your responsibility as the data owner. Nevertheless, we assist in migrating and configuring everything to achieve the maximum level of protection.
Malware has become less noticeable. Many have gained access to it and can launch an attack. The availability of ecosystems for cyberattacks allows any schoolkid to participate in the spread of viruses.
Hacking is no longer what it used to be.
While initially it was undertaken only by geek enthusiasts, today’s criminals are well-motivated financially. Typically, they operate on behalf of organized crime groups or governments like North Korea.
Business has moved online, taking money along with it. Cybercriminals, although unable to break into data centers or your sysadmin's basement, can gain control over an employee's account.
For example, Petya affected 2,000 enterprises in 65 countries, locking users out of their own ecosystems.
More than 9,000 infected files are discovered daily, and 700 families of viruses operate continuously. Initially, ransomware like WannaCry and Petya had no specific target. Cybercriminals have altered their tactics and now aim for the weak points of their targets.
Almost all businesses today use clouds, especially in the West. This allows shareholders to access company information from anywhere, even from a mobile device while on safari in Africa. Security concerns in some cases are not as strict as those at Cloud4Y, which can lead to security threats.
To hack a cloud network, it may be enough to gain access to an employee's email or computer by sending a phishing email with a malicious link. If the employee clicks on it, it's considered lost.
The Achilles' heel is smartphones and IoT. To simplify things, companies allow employees to access important information from personal phones. The quantitative increase in personal devices has raised risks. Cybercriminals can track passwords that employees enter when logging in from smartphones or tablets. The Internet of Things is also lagging behind in security. Sometimes solutions are just written unsafely by clumsy coders.
In the future, even more cybercrimes are expected with greater profit margins. Crypto-jacking attacks that utilize other people's computers to mine cryptocurrency will require CPU power and scalable cloud services. But many organizations are indifferent to all of this.
Attacks on mobile devices will become more frequent. However, they will no longer use targeted viruses but rather multi-functional ones. And when Skynet is launched and it takes over organizations, hackers will attack it to gain the power of artificial intelligence. Gaining control over IoT will become easier. It will be one of the weak points that are the hardest to protect.
Moreover, authorities in the European Union and Russia are rolling out new laws on personal data and its protection. This means that organizations will not be able to protect data and will be forced to make it public.
The fifth question
How will we take responsibility for your management if everything goes wrong?
By moving data to the cloud, you incur your risks. Without proper management, everything can be lost, considering that any top manager might accidentally lose their phone on which they are logged in. The human factor remains your responsibility.
A prudent and viable administrative policy and operational model aligns with standards set by cloud trends. Given the dynamic nature of cloud computing, traditional management approaches are too slow. A kind of automation is needed, and old methods must be updated.
It’s time for retail in Russia to grow by leveraging available technologies to compete successfully. In Innopolis, they are already testing cashier-less and staff-less stores. Do you get it? This involves a variety of tools whose benefits you can already evaluate at
Source: habr.com
