How Australian businesses can maximise the use of their public cloud investment to emerge stronger

In the midst of the global pandemic, it has become very clear that the different responses businesses have taken to the situation can be tied to mindset.

A positive, pro-active attitude delivers one result, while a conservative, inward-looking response delivers something quite different.

In our Emerge Stronger White Paper, we compared this to Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory –probably the most widely accepted principle of measuring our potential to adapt to change. Similarly, analyst firm Gartner uses fit or fragile descriptors to describe this phenomenon: fitness measures how the business emerged from the last big change, recognising that some will outperform others and attempting to understand why. The recent upheavals caused by COVID has demonstrated that in business, to be the ‘fittest’ is to be the most resilient because it is the most adaptable.  

Fragile organisations will batten down the hatches, sit tight and wait for things to improve. Fit organisations, by comparison, will evolve to suit their environment by adjusting to whatever is thrown at them. And the most effective technology for enabling this level of agility and adaptability is the cloud.

In the cloud, you can adapt, scale and respond faster.

Cloud services and their models of delivery have matured considerably over the past decade, which has been a critical factor in their effectiveness during this pandemic. Without Cloud, Australian businesses simply could not have moved so quickly to a ‘work from anywhere, anytime’ kind of model. It’s a testament to the maturity and ease-of-use of software-as-a-service and cloud platforms that could so quickly be purchased and configured to run some of the most core processes of business within hours of the need arising.

For many businesses, Cloud is powering productivity suites and business phone systems. It is enabling us to meet virtually ‘face-to-face’ without air travel or leaving our home. It may also have been deployed as a stopgap solution for businesses whose onsite systems couldn’t support everyone logging in remotely at once, and therefore a temporary solution was required.

‘This is why a key strategy being embraced by ‘fit’ organisations is the increased adoption of cloud-based resources and services. Indeed, according to research by US-based firm Flexera, 90% of organisations have increased their usage of Cloud as a result of the pandemic’.

Cloud has now well and truly become the de facto model for delivering most IT services. Its value to Australian businesses is proven, and it’s now a question of how to bed down these foundations. It’s also time to more tightly couple new cloud systems with each other as well as with existing on-premise IT environments.

Effective management is crucial

In this new post-COVID world, having the correct support infrastructure in place has never been more important for a growing business. Priorities must be reassessed to ensure that investments are being made that will drive growth and enhance customer experiences.


While cloud platforms and services have the potential to deliver significant business benefits, those benefits are unlikely to be fully realised without proactive management.

Managing IT resources when they are all housed in a corporate data centre is one thing, but requirements change when those resources are shifted to the cloud or augmented with software-as-a-service (SaaS) alternatives.

For many organisations, when it comes to cloud, it’s a case of the blind leading the blindfolded. A lack of visibility of exactly what cloud resources are being used, and a lack of awareness of which services are being consumed from the cloud, makes it all but impossible to have a clear picture of what is happening within an overall IT infrastructure.

The most cost-effective solution to this challenge is to engage the services of a technology partner who will ‘orchestrate’ your public cloud usage by managing consumption, cost accounting, security, data protection, and network integration. With a cloud services partner, there’s no need to get caught up in cloud operations – because they’re always working on your behalf to ensure you’re getting the right level of service.

Bill shock, for example, is an all too frequent experience in public cloud, but one which can and should be avoided with the right management in place. A quality technology partner will ensure your business is getting the best possible pricing deals from cloud providers. Pricing structures can be complex and difficult to understand, but with an experienced cloud services partner, you’ll ensure budget efficacy at all times.

To start your thought process around this challenge, consider how your organisation is using cloud resources and whether you have the required level of insight and management in place? Your ability to respond, adapt and change through the pandemic will be your ticket to emerging stronger in 2022 and beyond. And if you need advice on getting these factors right, feel free to reach out to the team at Tecala.