The ITWeb Cloud Summit 2018 will host experts from across industry in just under two weeks to uncover the evolution of cloud from a disruptive force to next-generation IT. JP Lourens and Yunus Docrat from Kyocera Document Solutions, as well as Ben Sheppard and Sheldon Halgreen from Noscotek will participate in a panel discussion on 8 February.

ITWeb: You are moderating a panel discussion on: ‘So your business has moved to the cloud, Now what?'. What do you expect the key salient outcomes to be of this discussion?

Lourens: Cloud technologies and benefits continue to increase and adoption rate of cloud by companies is no unfamiliar term. In the process of considering and migrating to the cloud, companies must also ensure that day-to-day operations are also considered. By moving to the cloud, we tend to forget that our business processes also need to be considered and optimised.
We aim to share valuable information on how organisations can leverage off technology to help them optimise, digitise and automate legacy business processes.

ITWeb: What, in your opinion, are the key benefits and challenges associated with moving to the cloud?

Lourens: The cloud provides many organisations, from SME to enterprise, the opportunity to leverage off the latest technologies, reducing IT costs, infrastructure costs, enhanced and better service offering and reduced IT risks. Challenges remain that companies still operate the same, they reap the benefits of moving to the cloud, but not by innovation within day-to-day operations ensuring business processes remain relevant.

ITWeb: You mention digital transformation in your synopsis. Is it just the latest buzzword, or is there real business value to be had?

Lourens: Digital transformation is indeed a buzzword in every industry. However, applying a methodology with it creates a value-add that could potentially deliver benefits such as: increased operational efficiency, enabling a mobile workforce, reduced overheads on unwanted paper costs, eliminating waste in legacy processes, enhanced security and access control to sensitive information and becoming records management compliant.

ITWeb: If you had to provide a checklist to assist attendees of the 2018 Cloud Summit to help an organisation make the decision to move to the cloud for transformation purposes, what questions should they ask themselves and the provider?

Lourens: Do we understand the impact of the new cloud technologies on our business? Will it benefit us financially, operationally and increase customer service delivery? Do we have a strategy to migrate to the cloud? What effect will cloud have on security, our good governance and what are the legal implications? Have we considered transforming our business operations and processes once we are in the cloud? Should we understand where we can better our processes and follow a methodical digital transformation model before we migrate to the cloud?

ITWeb: Why are you presenting at the Cloud Summit in February, and what outcomes/takeaways would you like attendees to leave the event with?

Lourens: Have we actually improved our day-to-day operations after moving to the cloud by automating and improving our business processes? Have we enabled and transformed our workforce to become a mobile-driven force? Have we transformed our workforce from being repetitive task-driven to a knowledge-based workforce by automating mundane tasks? Should we start considering solutions to enable us to become more compliant towards records management and document security once we have migrated to the cloud?

Business process analytics and auditing should become daily operational and performance measures to gauge company productivity and efficiency.