Technology played a strategic role in helping enterprises navigate through this crisis and as a consequence we are/we will witness an accelerated adoption of digital technologies like AI, Cloud, Blockchain and Security.
In the post-Covid world, businesses need the ability to operate anywhere, with agility. This is where Cloud solutions which offer seamless transition to remote business can provide scale and elasticity to adapt to client demands and spikes in application usage. Modern cloud-based environments also provide extra compute capacity that you pay for only when needed. To prepare for transition at scale in times like these, companies need to plan their journey to cloud around a couple of areas:
- Embrace a hybrid architecture: Hybrid cloud design patterns and service brokerage models allow commodity workloads to be delivered by multiple providers. While organizations may enjoy preferred relationships, they should also have options to shift workloads across clouds and cloud providers without hampering performance.
- Shift to “as-a-service” strategy to use cloud-based tools, applications and platforms. Many software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based solutions are delivered at scale across the globe, further reducing the risk of service disruption.
- Shift and share responsibility for infrastructure with Cloud partners. Cloud-based architectures provide elasticity and burstable capacity and reduce the risk of single points of failure or vendor lock-in. A secure, flexible cloud and digital services for mobility, virtualization, collaboration and support.
As organizations look to offer omni channel experience or make their customer care centers more resilient, AI – powered solutions like chatbots, cognitive routing, will make businesses more productive and effective. Enterprises, will also have to put AI at the centre of workflows, connecting with stakeholders, and using the insights generated from that process to enhance their products/services and innovate. This transformation is again powered by a hybrid cloud architecture, using open source software, that makes companies more secure and enables them to quickly adapt to shifting customer demands and changing market conditions. IBM has also recently launched Watson Works – a curated set of products that embeds Watson AI models and applications and provide data-driven insights to help employers make informed decisions on workplace re-entry and safety, facilities management, space allocation and other COVID- related priorities.
If you were to look at security, since March 11, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO, IBM X-Force has observed a more than 6000% increase in COVID-19 related spam. IBM X-Force IRIS also saw a 40% increase in incidents in 1Q 2020 globally, compared to the same quarter in 2019. Clearly, cyber criminals are using the crisis to drive their business, with virus-themed sales of malware assets on the dark web and even virus -related discount codes. The rapid shift to work from home with employees accessing corporate networks via personal devices has also opened new loop holes for cyber criminals. Hence, organizations need to have a big focus on Security – and build a robust cybersecurity resilience plan that relates to Application Security, Data & Content Security, Device Security, Enhanced Access and Identity Management and ability to manage cyber security threats by managing Security Operating Centers (SOCs) remotely. Our offers on IBM’s security solutions on Cloud provide these capabilities.