The market is an extremely competitive environment. Companies are constantly competing for new customers, profitable supply lines, and sales markets. To stay ahead of the curve, businesses must always keep their finger on the pulse: explore new technological horizons, mobilize innovations, and master previously unknown ways of interacting with customers. A quick response to the changing environment is becoming the key to higher profits and sometimes even operational survival. In addition to market competition, companies are also forced to confront numerous external threats, and hacking is just one of a long list, albeit the most likely.
Network risks
Cybercriminals never miss an opportunity to harm businesses. Data theft, extortion, and the destruction of network protocols are just the tip of the iceberg of hackers’ favorite crimes. Therefore, businesses are forced to constantly adapt to new cybersecurity challenges.
Criminal activity is increasingly being prevented. One of the most effective ways is to migrate data to the cloud. Businesses transfer critical data to remote servers. And companies are not alone in this direction. Specialized cloud operators come to their aid, providing real-time access to the infrastructure and taking over the lion’s share of technical functions.
If it was not possible to fully protect data from hackers, cloud technologies make it possible to quickly restore services after a cyberattack. The main condition is to follow the correct backup procedure, i.e. backing up data. The principle of “3-2-1” – where (3!) is the number of data backups, (2!) is the storage media, and (1!) is a remote copy, which is most often placed on servers abroad. During cyberattacks, hackers try to disrupt the network protocols of enterprises. Sometimes they succeed, which means operational death for unprepared businesses. In such dire circumstances, even a single remote copy of the data may be the last hope.
When the elements intervene
Other threats are even more difficult to prevent, and sometimes impossible to counteract. Nature can be one of these threats. Natural disasters often cause incredibly large material damage, massive customer flight, and blocked communications on the ground. Due to Hurricane Ian, which hit the Caribbean coast in September 2022, in the US state of Florida ,18% of cellular communication stations were out of order. And the services were able to provide emergency assistance to the victims, in particular, thanks to cloud services. Cooperation with operators had to be established in difficult conditions.
War and epidemic are not mythical horsemen of the apocalypse. In recent years, humanity has fully experienced their consequences. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses to look for ways to survive at a completely unusual pace. The healthcare sector has borne the greatest burden, as the system was not designed for such loads. Institutional capacities could not withstand the influx of patients, and some patients could not be treated due to coronavirus restrictions. So healthcare institutions turned to the clouds. During the peak periods of the pandemic, 65% of healthcare facilities in the United States used remote server services. Of these, 37% were unanimous about the reasons for using cloud technologies: better recovery capabilities in a crisis.
Every minute counts
A few minutes of downtime can be fatal for a business. If the operational process is interrupted at one stage, it has a domino effect on the overall operation of the enterprise. Critical infrastructure facilities of national importance and the logistics sector are particularly sensitive. A slight deviation from the transportation or product loading plan means material and reputational losses for the company. Therefore, attention is now focused on supply chain analysis. Cloud technologies allow logistics companies to facilitate decision-making, primarily by modeling market crises and predicting possible obstacles along the way.
Logistics companies are also stepping up their investments in cloud technologies. Recent studies show that more than 54% of surveyed executives are willing to spend more money to migrate to the cloud. The main goal is to make the supply chain more reliable and secure. In turn, 26% of respondents are convinced that technology increases the accuracy of market forecasts.
Cloud services allow for a comprehensive view of the market. This is a serious advantage for long-term planning, but it is almost irreplaceable in unpredictable crisis situations. Rearranging the flow of goods due to bad weather or damage to transport in a short period of time is a task that logisticians face very often. Cloud services accelerate remote process analysis and facilitate real-time data exchange between logistics links.
Perspective
The amount of data in the network is constantly growing. Managing all this information is becoming more difficult. At the same time, doing so efficiently and quickly is a feature that gives you an advantage over other competitors in the market. High speed of information transfer is a prerequisite for the existence of a modern business. And while the difference of a few milliseconds is insignificant for small businesses, for logistics conglomerates it is a guarantee of profits and a good reputation. Cloud services provide instant access to data. This allows for better response to changing market conditions and crisis management.
© Danil Belov, Director of Business Development at UCloud
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