Kathy Gibson reports – South African organisations are increasingly using cloud services to unlock opportunities and improve business outcomes.
Pandelani Munyai, group CIO of Transnet, explains that key considerations when adopting cloud included improved security and regulatory issues; integration with cloud-native services; improving data access speeds; better control of the application; faster app development; and the ability to outsource IT management.
“But most important for me is disaster recovery,” says Munyai, speaking at the Huawei Cloud Summit in Midrand today.
Cost is often cited as a challenge with cloud, but he points out that this needs to be balanced against the other imperatives.
“At the end of the day, it is very difficult to digitise if you don’t have a cloud infrastructure,” Munyai adds.
“And everyone talks about artificial intelligence (AI) as if it is easy to develop – but you can’t do it unless you have cloud.”
Creating smart ports is a Transnet imperative, and cloud is once again vital to be able to do this.
Some of the activities Transnet is deploying include data analytics and dashboard, nan IoT cloud platform asset tracking , reefer monitoring, and a digital workforce.
The organisation’s digital transformation strategy is built on horizontal digital platforms predicated on a unified digital backbone.
It is taking a hybrid cloud approach as it migrates business-critical applications to modernised cloud-native systems while maximising the on-premise data centres with an infrastructure refresh, business continuity and regulated operational systems.
AI is key to Transnet’s digitisation strategy, Munyai adds, improving detection rates while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Sunil Nagar, head of technology and operations at Standard Bank IAM, believes the adoption of key technological assets drives new business development
The bank’s digitisation journey has been impressive, and many legacy products have been modernised.
“But to bridge the gap between technology and business needs, data is key, says Nagar.
This requires a mature data platform that drives business improvement, it needs to be cloud-based for business management, and must allow for machine learning.
Nagar says Standard Bank group has implemented a number of strategic initiatives with Huawei, to enable best-practice technology capabilities across Africa.
Inzalo EMS is an ERP solutions provider to municipalities, helping them to improve service delivery to citizens.
GM Gerrit Deyzel describes how the company migrated 48 servers to Huawei cloud in just one week, with zero downtime.
As a result, it was able to increase sales revenue by 10-times and grow its customer base by 50 customer in the first six months of migrating to Huawei Cloud.
“We had such a good experience, we looked at what next we could do with Huawei.”
Inzalo accordingly began rolling out three new technology projects: AI; big data and IoT; and CodeArts to enable the company to enhance its ERP offering.
Going into the future, Deyzel has thrown its lot in with Huawei, with joint sales, marketing and R&D.
“The real benefit for us is the level of partnering that Huawei brings to the table. They take the time to understand us and our clients, and help us to grow,” Deyzel ends.
Joel Moodley, chief technology officer of Sekunjalo Group, explains that his key focus is to increase the group’s efficiency and reach.
“The old ways are inefficient and costly,” he says. “We are in the critical decision zone, where we need to make bold decision about shifting resources and revolutionise management.”
He points out that, by 2028, more than 98% of digital businesses will be built on the cloud, underlining its importance to organisations.
“This is not a passing trend; It is the future of business.”
Having migrated services to the cloud, Moodley says Sekunjalo has experienced cost-effective solutions with reliability and uptime, better performance, data backup and recovery, global data centre availability, and better customer care.
Sekunjalo’s Loot e-commerce platform currently offers 19-million products to 1,6-million users, sending about 1-million emails a day and interacting with 13 different payment gateways.
The company aims to almost double its customer base to 3-million in 2025, by creating a customer experience that keeps them coming back.
Loot has embarked on a partnership with Huawei Cloud and Jingdong Group in China to bring next-generation e-commerce systems and platforms to South Africa.
“We are working on the full digitisation of our e-commerce platforms,” Moodley says.
This includes optimising the supply chain, enhancing marketing and coffering a better shopping experience.