Monday, May 26, 2014

How IT has transformed Businesses


How IT has Transformed the Businesses

IT is believed to exist since stone ages. At that time the information technology was restricted to how the communication was done. With advancement in technologies, the communications and IT has grown to such a level that now IT is an inseparable part of most of the businesses today.

Initially, the role of IT was restricted to just the Data management. A faster computing than what can be done manually was the mere purpose of having an IT support. While the data volumes are increasing exponentially, the role of IT becomes more crucial to handle this ‘Big Data’ and in addition expands it to enable core business handling. The 4 key contributions of IT in transforming businesses are:


High Productivity: Today IT not only provides a platform for designing and implementing a process, but also makes the process the more efficient but enhancing the speed of execution. The accurate and streamlined processes are pivotal to any business functioning. A simple example of this can be seen in everyday life when we purchase stuff, book tickets and make reservations online. The complete scenario is transforming, which is making these systems more efficient as well as speedy.

Accessibility & connectivity: IT has connected the world. A multinational business is now-a-days as well connected as is a single office business. IT has made it easy for businesses to lookout for Customers, which means more business. Businesses can leverage Internet access technologies, new-generation tools such as wikis and social media networks to facilitate communication with vendors, business partners, customers, government regulators and other stakeholders. Communication is no more a barrier & with increased investment in bandwidth utilization, it seems to be getting even better.

Fostering collaboration:  IT enables workers to interact and to collaborate with partners irrespective of geographical boundaries. Cloud computing and proprietary software give businesses more flexibility in terms of utilizing talent. The overall collaboration is enhancing streamline workflow management through Outsourcing and partnerships / tie-ups.

Efficient Information and Data management: Businesses generate huge reserves of data and information, daily. Deploying IT software systems such as ERP, management information systems, data-processing data centers and related information management technologies can help businesses to manage, leverage and optimize terabytes of data. Information processing, classification and management are keys to operational efficiency and decision making for workers, professionals and top management in an organization.

Given these contributions and considering them crucial for any business, how can any firm take advantage of these? Renting provides a wonderful option. They don’t have to worry about purchasing the infrastructure /software nor about selling them back at the end of contract, if not needed. Businesses can now focus on their core task and concentrate more on it, without worrying about the other hassles. Businesses especially Software firms are getting more flexible in terms of picking up short term, high investment contracts.

Firms across the globe are realizing these benefits and moving to IT enabling. Not only IT provides a robust and long-term transformation, but also in economic slowdown, IT transform can help the businesses to cope-up. The trend surely shows how the further enhancements will push better transformation of the businesses. IT has changed the way business is done, and it will keep fostering better transformations. 

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

PaaS (Cloud Computing) takes lead in IT

PaaS takes the lead

“Cloud will define next gen IT”
This statement seldom crosses our ears. But what is it in cloud that will actually gain pace? Well, the answer is PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service). How? Let’s see.

What Consists of cloud computing

Many companies are now using cloud computing in different ways according to their needs. Their needs vary from hosting internal communication, CRM to get rental storage, servers, etc. Cloud services with its three layers address all these. The Lowest layer, IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) helps in providing solutions for Networking, Security, Sys mgmt, Servers, Storage, etc. The Uppermost layer is SaaS (Software-as-as-service), which encompasses services for Emails, CRM, ERP, etc. The middle layer is PaaS.

What is PAAS

PaaS provides a platform over the web to the buyers for creation and development of software. Thus it brings in the best of both the other layers near it. While the buying and maintaining hardware and software remains Cloud provider’s baby, it gives the buyer a flexibility of altering and editing the software by providing a platform to do so (not available in SaaS).


Where PaaS is useful

A lot of companies now work in an environment, where multiple developers from multiple locations are simultaneously involved. PaaS eases this by providing:
- Development, Test, Deployment, Hosting and Maintenance of applications in an integrated development environment.
- Architecture where multiple concurrent users utilize the same application.
- Integration to web services and databases and support for development team collaboration.

Given the services, PaaS provided the best trade-off between investment required and capabilities needed. It defines and supports a growth path for companies in their development stages in an efficient way by allowing them to concentrate on their business.

Future of PaaS

With market of PaaS predicted to be nearly $1Bn by 2016, it has shown the maximum growth until among other Cloud offerings. The leading PaaS service providers such as Microsoft, IBM, Google & SalesForce are keen on increasing their market share.

According to IDC, a popular analyst firm, 65.2 percent of PaaS revenue was derived from the Americas in 2012, and that's not expected to change much by 2017, dropping only to 62.3 percent. But PaaS revenue in Asia-Pacific including Japan with 14.1 percent market share in 2012 is expected to grow to 19.0 percent in 2017. Europe, the Middle East and Africa accounted for 20.7 percent of PaaS revenue in 2012, but that total is expected to drop slightly, to 18.7 percent, by 2017.

Surely there are shortcomings in PaaS, but with IT giants investing heavily in research and innovation in cloud computing, these can be surely fixed. Emergence of new players (while they prefer collaborating with leaders, so they don’t have to reinvent the common platform services) is certainly adding new value to PaaS. PaaS is no doubt taking lead in IT.