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Driving digital transformation through cloud technologies

How is the public sector adopting cloud services? Slowly, it appears. By Tamsin Oxford, contributor

Johannesburg, 05 Nov 2021
Can cloud really transform the South African economy? (Karolina Komendera)
Can cloud really transform the South African economy? (Karolina Komendera)

The public sector is under pressure to evolve, adapt and deliver citizen services at speed. Yet it faces numerous obstacles to long-term success, many that fundamentally limit the sector’s ability to fully realise cloud potential and capability. In an AWS roundtable attended by CIOs, thought leaders and decision-makers from across the South African public sector, experts unpacked the challenges and opportunities that lie within cloud.

Can cloud really transform the South African economy?

Answering that question starts by uncovering the challenges that limit its adoption, for it’s in knowing the problems that the sector can start seeking solutions.

Peter Tshishonga, CIO of Digital and Customer Journeys at Standard Bank, believes that limited access to skills forms a barrier to digital adoption and innovation. The speed at which we need to train for these skills is a challenge, he said, particularly around digital and cloud skills development.

As you blink, infrastructure ages. It’s more affordable to rent it like a utility and it provides you with the elasticity and capacity you need. Ian Lester, Beyond Wireless Technologies

His view was echoed by Lindani Mthethwa, head: Solutions Support and Incubation at the Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI), who added that, while skills were essential for the country as a whole, particularly in driving socioeconomic development, it is equally important to co-ordinate, collaborate and integrate the country’s ICT-related policies and approaches.

“We need to change our approaches and implementation to seriously improve service delivery, particularly in government,” he said.

Cost-effective connectivity

Of course, no discussion about cloud would be complete without dipping into the debate about connectivity. Fred de Bruyn, Azure/AWS data engineer and data/solution architect at Fluid Intelligence, highlighted the fact that the biggest stumbling block to quality cloud integration was internet access, particularly in rural areas.

“We need cost-effective connectivity,” he said.

This was supported by Nadeem Oozeer, a data scientist at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), who believes that one of the biggest challenges for cloud adoption in the country is internet connectivity. Connectivity – the cost, the limited reach, the range and the limitations – was the biggest thorn in the conversation’s side.

Lufuno T Khorommbi, Orizur Consulting Enterprise.
Lufuno T Khorommbi, Orizur Consulting Enterprise.

“Connectivity is often not recognised as the issue it is,” said Emmanuel Kekana, director at MEK Holdings. “It’s one of the biggest inhibitors of innovation and adoption – just look at the limits it has placed on telemedicine, for example. The moment you step outside of the city, connectivity is a challenge.”

As Lufuno T Khorommbi, specialist data privacy and cyber security governance (CSG) at Orizur Consulting Enterprise, pointed out, connectivity isn’t a small issue. It’s one that directly affects the quality of access and economy for those living and operating in rural communities. She said that it’s impossible to talk about digital inclusion without connecting everyone.

Tebogo Leshope, chief operations officer at Sentech, agreed, saying: “I’m glad that people are raising the issues of connectivity. It’s a problem that requires more detail and focus. Our view is that affordability is affecting connectivity in South Africa. If you look at other countries that have matured in infrastructure and telecommunications, they’ve evolved their connectivity offerings and costs.”

Cloud fears

Another challenge raised by Mthoko Mncwabe, CIO of the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA), is managing capex and opex, and translating an existing heavy capex investment into an opex one, without significantly affecting systems and capabilities. For him, the flexibility of pricing from cloud service providers is important as this could help the sector evolve its investment around legacy platforms more effectively. He also underscored the importance of data sovereignty and data management – two boxes that urgently need to be ticked by public sector organisations.

Mthoko Mncwabe, Airports Company South Africa.
Mthoko Mncwabe, Airports Company South Africa.

“Certain cloud orchestration solutions don’t work with others, or don’t integrate with one another, so the business is forced to acquire multiple solutions,” he said. “This introduces the issue of where the data sits or where the data centres sit – nobody knows where the data resides. We need a better way of controlling it, wherever it is.”

Mthethwa agreed: “I support Mthoko’s view around control and security. We sometimes look at ourselves as if we live on two different continents – public and private sector – and we don’t co-operate and integrate and it evolves into this us-versus-them mentality, a view of profit versus delivery. But the reality is this – if we don’t solve the issues of connectivity and collaboration, if we don’t unpack these issues within this sector, then we are hampering our development.” He added that often, companies think these issues are for big companies, but little thought is given to SMMEs, such as farmers who need to sell their cabbages.

“They need this technology to drive their success and development, just as much as the large enterprises do,” he said.

The discussion then moved from the complexities and limitations to focusing on the transformation aspect of digital transformation.

What needs to be done to support digital transformation in the country?

Tebogo Leshope, Sentech.
Tebogo Leshope, Sentech.

Ian Lester, CEO of Beyond Wireless Technologies, had a different view of the connectivity conundrum, saying that few people are without smartphones and these are, in themselves, a form of connectivity. He doesn’t believe that connectivity is as much of an issue, but rather that the challenge lies in how government sector employees and businesses use their devices to access information, and who pays for the data they use.

“It’s a commercial issue – who pays for the data – rather than a connectivity one,” he said. “Mobile access penetration, defined as the number of unique individuals who have regular access to a mobile phone, was found to be 95% in South Africa in 2018, according to Pew Research. People do have access to devices and connectivity.”

Oozeer, from SKA, then shifted the conversation towards the value of cloud in driving the economy, and the importance of leveraging ICT services as an enabler. He believed that ICT services form the backdrop for other economies and that it is imperative to strengthen existing systems to ensure that these economies survive.

Your cloud implementation partner should come with a deep understanding of what the public sector organisation is aiming to do and help it to be successful. The goal is to ensure that customer goals are achieved by helping them along the journey. Avin Mansookram, MFT

Said Mncwabe: “The biggest issue is cost (and) connecting services back to our enterprise. I can’t take these services from on-prem to the cloud to decrease costs. Not that cloud is expensive, but that the cost of quality of service – to the point where you eliminate slow responses – can be high when connectivity services are on the cloud. The key issue is how can service providers help us to overcome these costs and limitations?”

Avin Mansookram, director at MFT, believes that one way to overcome this challenge is to look at the workloads that are the proverbial ‘low-hanging fruit’. By identifying these, and moving them to the cloud, they can deliver on agility and employee productivity. These small shifts to the cloud make financial and capability sense, and go a long way to getting the digital transformation train going.

Adding another layer to the conversation, Khorombi pointed out that the public sector should also be assured of no vendor lock-in. She said this would allow for public sector entities to function independently from cloud providers and to embed layers of governance and compliance that would ensure alignment with the Protection of Personal Information Act.

This was reinforced by De Bruyn, who said: “I worked on a public sector project where collecting data was an issue. People would collect memory sticks of data to integrate into the main data centre. We need to get the basics right. Connectivity, data management and then expand on the rest.”

So how does the public sector drive digital transformation through the cloud?

Said Mansookram: “Your cloud implementation partner should come with a deep understanding of what the public sector organisation is aiming to do and help it to be successful. The goal is to ensure that customer goals are achieved by helping them along the journey. It’s important to spend time and effort on getting the skills right, moving companies to the cloud intelligently and making sure that any investment delivers results.”

Starting from zero

The CIO of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Luyanda Ndlovu, fondly referred to as the CIO of the country, said digital transformation remains a priority for his department.

“Digital transformation is essential as government serves everyone; the country relies on us,” he added. “The provision of infrastructure and services is key, and we recently developed a policy that talks about data governance and security. We are constantly thinking about digital transformation and we believe that we now have a very robust digital transformation strategy in place, (and) one that the country is going to feel. But we’re starting from zero as the current infrastructure is not up to scratch.”

The journey to the cloud has its challenges. It has been a year where the CIO of the world – COVID-19 – has forced organisations to go online. It has asked the public sector to make radical changes, to address risk, to implement more robust protocols. It’s never been more important to ensure that public sector entities have solid data management policies and strategies because, as Ndlovu pointed out, ‘cloud has so many benefits’.

He added that ICT infrastructure – physical and solution-based – and connectivity keep him up at night. This was echoed by Leshope, who said the layers of theft and fraud and risk are a constant concern.

Lester, from Beyond Wireless Technologies, said digital transformation has become a priority for the country, and one that will allow for improved cost and service efficiency to ensure the sector isn’t constantly juggling the complexities of legacy technology. He said: “As you blink, infrastructure ages. It’s more affordable to rent it like a utility and it provides you with the elasticity and capacity you need.”

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* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za