In the last few webinars, we saw how CIOs are gearing up for digital transformation, how they are devising the data center strategy, and countering cyber security threats. As cloud computing has become inherent in almost every technology implementation, CIOReview India organized a webinar on Cloud Adoption to understand how CIOs from different industries are adopting cloud.         

According to a recent survey by IDC, 64 percent companies in India are experiencing an increased demand for cloud computing and 56 percent have already accepted cloud as the norm going forward. So, obviously, the benefit of adopting cloud is unquestionable. But every cloud adoption brings along a set of challenges that must be addressed in order to achieve the business objective.

To know how, we had some illustrious guests on the panel from different industries who explained how cloud adoption can be aligned with the business objective.       

The panelists were:

• Shailesh Sultania, Chief Digital Officer, Mahindra Logistics
• Manoj Deorukhkar, CIO, Sterling and Wilson Limited  
• Rajeev Khade, VP & Global Head - IT, Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corp. Pvt. Ltd  

Cloud Adoption in Logistics Industry                         

Starting off the discussion, Shailesh Sultania, Chief Digital Officer, Mahindra Logistics, shed light on the cloud adoption scenario in logistics industry. “Most of the solutions today are being preferably sought after and provided as a service.

In logistics also, we are seeing a similar trend wherein customers want to choose from different options of delivery or warehousing as per their need.A case in point would be the short term exponential increase in demand faced by ecommerce players wherein they need large scale logistics services for that particular period.

That is where cloud comes to the rescue, helping you to expand and shrink the scale of operations. Information sharing is another aspect wherein cloud is used to share real-time information related to logistics.

So, cloud brings new flexibility and speed while bringing down the cost. It has brought us to the forefront of automation, helping us to segment the customers and add value for each segment by using a different model for every segment.”    

How Energy Companies can Leverage Cloud

Manoj Deorukhkar, CIO, Sterling and Wilson Limited elaborated on cloud adoption by the energy sector. “If you look at the energy sector, there are basically two domains – Oil & Gas and Electricity or Power sector. Traditionally, these two sectors have been dominated by big players who have been using legacy way of operations but it started changing after 1970s. Both these segments have in common four sub-domains – Upstream where you generate electricity or you get the crude oil and gas, Midstream or distribution, Local distribution, and finally Retailing. After 1970s and 1980s, the economy forced the behemoths to unbundle these four segments. Also, the trans-national trade became important for the companies to function. Moreover, all these companies work over a large area for generation to distribution, which throws up a lot of data.

There are SCADA systems and PLCs that use and share these data for the purpose of monitoring and controlling. It can be achieved only through digitalization. The advent of IoT technologies helped these companies in converting the analogous data into digital data and taking it to the cloud, thus enabling them to monitor their upstream plant or refinery or distribution and transmission. This has created a new wave of cloud adoption for the energy companies.”

“In addition, usage of drones has accelerated, robotics is being used in adverse climatic conditions, and AR/VR has emerged as an enabler for maintaining a plant efficiently. The only way in which all of this can be made sustainable is by adopting cloud as it enables access to all the data collected. Cloud is making it possible for organizations to work as an unbundled entity, share data and collaborate, while making sure that a disaster management process is in-built. So, cloud is here to stay, not only to facilitate our business but also to make it more scalable.”    

How is Cloud Transforming Manufacturing  

Rajeev Khade, VP & Global Head - IT, Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corp. Pvt. Ltd explained how the manufacturing sector is being transformed by cloud. “Traditionally, the question which the industry used to ponder was – Why to move to cloud? But with the advancement with respect to data security, digitalization, and automation etc, the question which is now being asked is – Why one should not move to cloud?

Then there is the question of which applications to be moved to cloud. Unlike many sectors, manufacturing sector has to focus on its core competency. There are several factors that need to be considered which pertain to the complexity of the application – impact to the business, transactional dependencies, benefits of ending support for legacy applications, likelihood of taking advantage of cloud’s elasticity, security considerations, application lifecycle considerations, application architecture considerations, data considerations, etc.

Before moving to cloud, there are several questions that are asked to IT Heads: Can I get away from the infrastructure maintenance and refresh cost? Can I safeguard the organization from security threats? Can I concentrate on core business of manufacturing? Can I reduce the total cost of ownership? and more. Cloud has transformed the manufacturing industry in a drastic way and considering the benefits of the cloud, the answers to the above questions is yes and it has resulted in aggressive adoption of cloud in manufacturing.”  

With insights into cloud adoption in their respective industries, the panelists painted a clear picture of how cloud is being adopted across industries and what it has to offer.