The building blocks of a digital foundation
The answer is, well, it depends.
It depends on how far advanced you already are in your digital journey and on where you want to get to. This then dictates the make-up of your foundation: on-premises, cloud, or a hybrid mix of both. Which brings us to an interesting cloud debate in Public Sector…
According to UKCloud, 85.2% of public sector organisations are reluctant to move applications to the cloud due to risk and security concerns.
Yet, cast the net beyond public sector and 64% of IT professionals agree that the cloud is more secure than older systems.
Can control and security sit alongside flexibility and agility? We believe the answer a resounding YES. You want your teams to have the tools to reach and engage and support more people in more ways. And for those people to have the means to connect with you.
The trouble with running old software on old systems internally is it constrains what you can build to support this.
You don’t want it holding you back from progressing social cases… giving people the means to talk to you… or identifying vulnerable families affected by the cost-of-living crisis…
Similarly, you don’t want to concern yourself with the repercussion of using software without correct license use rights.
You want to deliver proactive value and support. And to make a positive difference. Not to waste time working out how to do so within the constraints of current systems, right?
This said, having physical systems is good and right, for some. You may have committed to long-term licenses, you may store sensitive financial or customer information or the cost and complexity of re-architecting applications is too great.
In fact, basing your digital foundation on a hybrid model of on-premises and cloud-based platforms gives you flexibility.
You may choose to run your productivity tools - such as Office 365 - on an application platform in the cloud to ensure demand scalability. And yet, due to the sensitive nature of information, you may manage your data systems on-premises.
There is no right or wrong.