Suraj Raghunath
Global Portfolio Partner
In this article:
In the coming years, cloud applications will prove essential to the vast majority of digital workloads. Getting the development of these apps right, therefore, will be crucial to business success – whether they are adapted from legacy tools or built from scratch as part of a cloud-native approach.
According to Gartner, the cloud will form the “centrepiece of new digital experiences,” with global cloud revenue predicted to hit $474 billion this year. Whether a small business or a multinational enterprise, cloud computing is revolutionising a multitude of processes, from communications to HR.
Organisations across a range of industries are recognising the benefits of digital transformation – and the role that cloud apps can play on that journey. Cloud business applications have made the transition from popular to pervasive – in part because of the many benefits they offer, including some represented in the image below.
Cloud applications can deliver advantages around affordability, scalability, and reliability. Cloud migration and app modernisation mean that businesses can leave their clunky, legacy solutions behind in favour of more agile cloud services. SaaS apps are used by a staggering 99% of businesses either to fill gaps or to transform what they are currently doing. Quite simply, a combination of the above is quite essential for any business.
While many businesses use cloud applications, there remain organisations that are not yet using them to their full potential. By 2025, it is estimated that over 85% of companies will embrace a cloud-first approach and will not be able to fully execute their digital strategies without the use of cloud-native architectures and technologies.
The kind of app transformation and software development required to ensure that your cloud solutions deliver optimal performance can present challenges, however. That’s why at Getronics, we’ve come up with a framework to simplify the app journey to, or within, the cloud. With its four focus areas, GetDevelop is our industry-leading cloud app development programme – and it could unlock the benefits of cloud apps for your business.
Seamless cloud migration or cloud-first apps?
If the justification for using cloud applications is clear, how businesses should adopt them is less straightforward. Although cloud-native applications are growing in popularity, many organisations are instead choosing to migrate their existing on-premise software – particularly where legacy applications are trusted and reliable. Plus, with the right cloud migration specialists, this approach can still lead to the discovery of new benefits.
The same Gartner findings mentioned above revealed that just 30% of digital workloads were deployed on cloud-native platforms last year. While this figure is continuing to rise, it means that just under three-quarters of decision-makers aren’t ready to move all their workloads across to cloud-native solutions. Any framework for successful cloud app development, therefore, must consider the ongoing role played by legacy apps and migration.
How embracing cloud apps will set you up for success
With GetDevelop, we understand that the journey to the cloud is different depending on the specific application that a business is using. That’s why our cloud app development framework has four distinct focus areas that are designed to suit a variety of business needs:
1. App transformation as part of the journey to cloud
While it may be true that delaying the transformation of legacy apps can leave businesses at a competitive disadvantage, it is equally important to recognise that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Each business and app has a unique story and requires a tailor-made approach.
By focusing on app transformation before you migrate to the cloud, you can achieve high levels of business growth and agility with minimal disruption. In some cases, it may be possible to adopt a “lift and shift” approach but at other times, partial (or extensive) refactoring or restructuring may be required. In any case, organisations may not need to reinvent the wheel to get the best out of their existing apps in a cloud environment.
2. App transformation directly on cloud
When looking to complete app modernisation from within the cloud, business continuity is key. It involves the careful evaluation of your existing app, iterative application refactoring, and the restructuring of an app’s code without materially altering its function. This approach is also about simplifying the app’s future operability.
The cloud is not an endpoint, but a journey. This means that app transformation must be similarly flexible; ready to adapt to shifting needs. However, this approach is not concerned with transformation for the sake of it. App transformation within the cloud is about implementing a redesign that maximises the value of the transformation but implements progressive changes.
3. SaaS implementation and integration
With the third focus area of GetDevelop, we ensure the success of your app while introducing new SaaS offerings into your existing business. This requires organisations to smartly categorise and budget the distinct effort involved in the implementation and integration process.
With GetDevelop, we review options for retiring and replacing existing apps and the need for integration (if any is required). We evaluate and shortlist SaaS alternatives that elevate functionality, provide scalability, and agility and, at the same time, are cost-effective. And we implement stringent KPIs and SLA measures with your SaaS provider.
4. Cloud-native app development
With cloud-native app development, businesses can opt for either a pure-play greenfield development or the “R” strategy (Rehost, Rearchitect, Refactor, Rebuild). Either way, Getronics will build the application with cloud-native capability. The development can be both on private PaaS or directly on the Azure and AWS cloud platforms.
Taking requirements from various business areas and combining them with best practices from a multitude of verticals, GetDevelop can design apps with a responsive look and feel, using the requisite technical skill, and as part of a truly agile development lifecycle.
Maximising ROI by using cloud-native solutions
GetDevelop is our approach to building software applications that fully exploit the advantages of cloud computing. In practice, this means producing applications that suit the needs of clients – whether they’d prefer to migrate existing applications or build cloud-first solutions from the ground up.
Of course, cloud apps offer several advantages over legacy tools, allowing software to be created in a faster, more reliable, and scalable way by dramatically reducing time to market and cost. But at the same time, our GetDevelop offering enables businesses to transform existing applications through its rearchitect and refactoring services. GetDevelop achieves this by leveraging the elastic infrastructure of cloud services along with their automation and orchestration benefits to provide truly agile delivery across several different verticals. All this is made possible thanks to our teams of Cloud Specialists based across the globe.
As with all of our other services, GetDevelop is fully integrated into the Getronics Cloud Framework alongside GetConsult, GetMigrate, GetManage, and GetTransform.
With our GetDevelop service, we can assist in the creation of a cloud application that maximises business revenue and fits into an organisation’s existing IT environment. Find out how Getronics’ team of cloud specialists can help you develop cloud apps that are specific to your needs – both now and in the future.
