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Cloud Computing Is Changing Management
New technologies frequently give rise to management theories and practices. Ideas about how to organize assembly lines and logistics were sparked by interchangeable parts. In the subject of Operations Research, complicated computations were made possible by mainframe computers. For business process management, client-server technology provided the system-wide visibility required by enterprise resource planning systems (also known as business process management or BPM).
As a result, now is the moment to start considering how the most significant information technology of our time, cloud computing, may alter management. What new possibilities does it open up, and how will that impact our work going forward?
The large-scale study of Operations Research mirrored meticulous data collecting on a few variables which were moved to punch cards since history suggests that information technology influences management primarily through changes in the way information is gathered. As a result of BPM, the entire supply chain from product conception to final assembly was reflected.
How Businesses Are Adapting In the Modern World?
There are several advantages to using cloud services, such as the ability to scale up or down quickly to manage larger workloads, as well as automated security patching across thousands of workstations. In the spirit of anticipating client needs, this will certainly necessitate a more flexible work arrangement as well. Over-the-air upgrades to product software are essential to the new system’s quick data collection and analysis.
Changes in product design, greater collaboration between IT and other business units, and more customer involvement are all possible outcomes of the transition to the cloud. Even cooperative product development with customers is possible. Faster-acting organizational architecture will be encouraged by new techniques for building and deploying software. To get a sense of how these changes will be implemented, it’s best to look at the companies that are already implementing them.
Companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud all offer public cloud computing services that are still seen by many as a more cost-effective and time-saving option for businesses to store and process their data. Even though the price is lower, it is still a cost, just like with traditional computers.
As a result of lower costs, many companies have decided to outsource their data centers in favor of on-demand computing and software. Cloud computing software can also be used to increase resources and speed up work in some organizations.
To What Extent Does It Influence Product Design And Consumer Satisfaction?
For companies that want to experiment with new products or marketing campaigns via cloud-based software prototypes, cloud technology is making it easier to do so. Cloud-based artificial intelligence operations, such as image and speech recognition, are also becoming more commonplace in the cloud, which serves as a common repository for new data.
Existing evidence shows that startups increasingly think of their products and services as software-centric entities from which data is continuously extracted. As time goes on, changes and upgrades become a normal part of daily life. As processes become more iterative, organizational functions become more blurred.
An indivisible relationship between product development and deployment has been emphasized by ride-hailing company Uber, which has emphasized the importance of its hybrid cloud model. Through the use of mobile apps, large-scale data analytics, and social networking, Uber can model a virtual taxi fleet from individual private cars.
Industrial products are going through a similar process of constant revision. One of New York’s newest tech companies, Oden Technologies, is developing sensors to monitor large and complex manufacturing operations in real-time.
Building a tablet-based system that could perform complex calculations in real time was one recent project. Accelerated testing and direct communication with the customer during the design and construction process resulted in a product that would normally take six months to a year to produce. In other words, the initial concept and prototype evolved into the final product over time, with the customer actively involved in the process.
What Else Should Be Done?
It should come as no surprise that management theory and practical technology are inextricably linked. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure,” famously said Silicon Valley founder William Hewlett. In the same way that what and how you measure something influences how it is managed.
Is it possible that cloud computing will become as important for management as a mainframe or client-server computing? Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock, and Chad Syverson found in a recent paper that major technological advancements can lag productivity gains for years, if not decades. Most intriguingly, an ecosystem of other changes and new thinking about how the technology should be used are required for it to have a full impact.
MIT Sloan School of Management professor Brynjolfsson believes that software-based advancements like AI and cloud computing will find a place faster than many of the earlier advancements. Because of their low costs, startups can quickly adopt them without being constrained by the costs and practices of their predecessors. In contrast to hardware advancements, this time the impact will come from software – in particular, what happens when teams across the company build products and services using what is known as cloud-native software.
As a result of using the cloud, “we can replicate processes more quickly,” he explained. Nevertheless, three things must be updated before you can fully reap the benefits: Organizational innovation, trained human capital, and social institutions, like infrastructure and regulation that can adapt to new technologies.” According to him, “the biggest problem now is that important new technologies are moving forward, and people aren’t thinking enough about the big implications.”
It is becoming increasingly common for organizations to adopt “cloud native” practices. The way cloud computing software is conceptualized may be as critical as the physical infrastructure of cloud computing (which is millions of computer servers dispersed around the globe, connected by high-speed fiber optic lines.)
The emphasis on “cloud native” software approaches is on the simplicity of use and minimal impact on software components. There are many “microservices” that can be tweaked without having a major impact on the running software.
As a result of these dependencies, even the most minor changes in traditional complex software can require a significant amount of time and effort to implement. Think of it as the way a plant’s roots can grow over a big area, and intermingle with other roots. Managing dependencies is made a lot easier by packaging microservices into lightweight containers.
As a result, an application can be deployed and managed globally from a single location with minimal effort. Originally developed by Google to run the company’s many global applications, Kubernetes, the most popular open source software for orchestrating container usage, is now widely used by other companies.
Google’s in-house version of Kubernetes now handles about 2 billion containers per week. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which includes Google Cloud, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Amazon, manages open-source Kubernetes.
As the executive director of the foundation, Dan Kohn, has predicted, legacy software worth about $100 trillion in net GDP will eventually be ported to Kubernetes for better servicing.
With Kubernetes, Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, was able to build and release an investor research application in 100 days, which is roughly the amount of time it would normally take to acquire computer hardware. A total of 20 people worked on the project, including representatives from the company’s technology, infrastructure, production, and development departments, as well as the information security division.
The project’s leader, Michael Francis, noted how Kubernetes encourages teamwork. In his experience, “I saw junior developers working directly with senior managers, asking what they needed,” he said. Because of the increased speed of the response, since a large software project’s thousands of processes can be transparently managed and problems quickly resolved, there is less anxiety about taking on a large project of this scope.
In part, Kubernetes’ success can be attributed to its ability to fit into a larger cloud technology ethos: adaptability. Cloud computing’s computer server virtualization makes it possible to run more workloads on a single machine and to “burst” data onto other machines, even those located far away. Data and work can also be divided into smaller units and distributed, either for security or to maximize the number of resources that can be used. By renting computation rather than purchasing assets, users of public cloud services move away from capital expenditures and toward a more versatile operating expense.
Learning systems for creating markets like India and Mexico are being developed with the help of Kubernetes. An older, twice-yearly model is being replaced by one that allows for constant fine-tuning of a small number of products that serve hundreds of thousands of students each month.
‘It forces our internal teams to think more quickly about innovating,’ said Mr. Jackson. Ten times more release activity can be achieved “conservatively.” A lot of collaboration is needed among product managers, software developers, and IT executives like Mr. Jackson who manage resource allocation for the software to keep track of student interactions and find ways to ensure they are learning.
Changing the perception of IT as a value enabler, he calls it “a redistribution of accountability” within the organization. He claims that the new method of software deployment allows him to see exactly where and how the software is being used, which gives him an idea of potential future expenses. In other words, he’s no longer just spending money up front; he’s now a part of the growth process.
John Culkin had a brilliant insight in 1967 when the Information Technology revolution was still in its infancy. He wrote, “We become what we behold.” As a result, our tools shape us and vice versa. Five decades later, we have access to a wealth of IT history and can imagine how new technology will shape our lives and businesses. Every aspect of a business will become more responsive as our systems and people improve their ability to adapt to changing markets.
Software engineers and financial planners, for example, may evolve toward domain knowledge that is shared in collaborative teams, brought together and disassembled during a product’s life cycle. To meet a new market need, companies may collaborate more closely, taking advantage of each other’s comparative advantages. For an organization to be as adaptable as the cloud computing IT tool that it resides in, managers will need to focus more than ever on skills such as collaboration, empathy, education, and new rewards.
