Things to Consider While Selecting a Suitable Cloud Type

Having completed his BE in Electrical & Electronics from Madurai Kamaraj University and PG Diploma in Marketing from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Raja is a seasoned industry professional with over three decades of experience in unified communications, business development, sales & marketing, and team management areas. Prior to joining Genesys in 2019, he handled key roles across companies such as Sonar Communications, Larsen & Toubro, Avaya GlobalConnect, BT, and Cisco.

In an exclusive conversation with Siliconindia recently, Raja Lakshmipathy, VP & MD, Genesys shared his insights on various aspects pertaining to cloud implementation in the current scenario. Below are the excerpts from the exclusive interview

Share your thoughts on the cloud technology market in India today.

Cloud is witnessing phenomenal growth in India today. According to a recent IDC study, the public cloud services market is expected to be worth $13 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 23 percent between 2023 and 2026. I feel that apart from India, no other country in the world has highlighted this growth trajectory in terms of the cloud market. There are multiple factors that are driving this rapid growth - Firstly, a lot of companies embraced remote working and hybrid working models due to the covid pandemic as cloud provided them with easy access to their services and consumption models across multiple locations worldwide.

Secondly, companies expect to have simplicity in whatever they do today and want to move away from complex deployments towards simple configurations. Earlier, an on-premise would usually take between 6-8 months, but the same thing can be done through cloud in six weeks or even less. Apart from the fact that cloud brings in higher performance at a lower cost, the integration methodologies and the possibility of migrating smoothly is also accelerating cloud growth in India. Beyond the regular benefits of pay-as-you-go and scalability, cloud is also used to orchestrate experiences for consumers by integrating or even embedding within the business applications itself. These are some of the factors that are driving the cloud growth in the country.

Explain some of the latest technologies that businesses are integrating with cloud to optimise their functions.

Any application or technology that operates in silo cannot deliver the desired result or orchestrate experiences on its own. For instance, in the contact centre space, an average contact centre integrates with 18 different technology vendors. Among major technologies that businesses are integrating today, journey management is especially important because it analyses the customer journey across both digital touchpoints and physical environment, thus enabling businesses to orchestrate journeys across a physical-digital or ‘phygital’ environment.

Secondly, automation through AI is bringing in massive operational efficiencies by automating a lot of mundane tasks today. As a result, an increasing number of customers are looking to automate their cloud platform. Also, there are a lot of advancements happening in the predictive engagement space in terms of understanding what the customers need and being able to deliver personalised experiences for them across multiple touchpoints.

Lastly, digital and consumer applications integrations are providing a lot of added benefits to the customers to choose the medium of their choice. With multitude of partners enabling such technology integrations through any cloud platform, it is easy to integrate multiple platforms on the go today.

What are some key factors organisations must consider while selecting a cloud type?

There are numerous factors that should be considered while selecting a cloud type; but before that, it is imperative to understand the types of cloud offerings available as well. Organisations today could explore cloud-based technologies based on their business requirements – be it IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. The kind of cloud they wish to deploy could depend on their need for scalability, security, reliability, agility, and pricing.

How can the government encourage cloud adoption and contribute towards the betterment of the industry in the country?

As an enthusiastic industry professional, I commend our government for quickly bringing in the right changes to the regulatory policies immediately after the pandemic hit. Due to these changes, the industry has witnessed a higher growth rate than ever before. The Digital India initiative is expected to transform the country into a digitally empowered economy, and cloud will no doubt play a key role in making this a reality. Additionally, the government is also actively encouraging the usage of cloud services to accelerate digital transformation across multiple sectors. Recently, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) came up with a cloud-first approach under which it is mandatory for all government departments to assess and adopt cloud computing for current and future requirements. Furthermore, it has also empanelled private cloud service providers which can be availed by all government bodies under this initiative.

In your opinion, how do you expect the industry to evolve in the near future?

Firstly, organisations are going to strategise their cloud deployments across both private and public cloud by using a combination of different cloud service providers. By dispersing their resources over multiple segments, organisations will be able to effectively optimise workload, bring in the desired flexibility and reduce the risks. Secondly, with the increase in the number of IoT devices & applications, edge computing is going to become more important in the future. As a result, most of the cloud providers are developing edge computing solutions and extending their network edge services. Lastly, with the rapid pace at which AI technology is advancing currently, organisations are increasingly storing and managing data on cloud due to the ability of cloud-based systems to learn, adopt and develop over time, thus improving their data handling capabilities. Hence, there will be a sharp increase in the demand for cloud AI services in the days to come which will herald new ways businesses can personalise and deliver on customer experiences.

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