Why You Are Better Off In The Cloud

As several technology companies continue to make meaningful and enduring contributions to battle COVID-19 – the global pandemic, Cloud Productivity Solutions, one of Microsoft’s partners in Kenya has stood-out in its quest of empowering SMEs, Corporate Firms and Schools to embrace the new norm of working.

Driven with an ambitious passion of moving organizations to the Cloud and pushing against unemployment, Jeremiah Kibanga, CEO, Cloud Productivity Solutions talked to CIO East Africa on why organizations are better off in the Cloud as the world of work evolves.

According to Kibanga, the pandemic, having forced several businesses across the world to shut operations has as well compelled companies to rely heavily on remote working. The dependency of digital infrastructure to keep working while observing social distancing a measure imposed to tame the virus has accelerated cloud computing.

While Microsoft quickly made its Teams collaboration suite available to individuals, the public sector and the private sector at no charge up to the end of September – the astonishing outcome so far indicating a staggering 12 million people around the world as Teams users, Kibanga’s team has also been making leaps in Kenya. With a self-set target, averaging 200 organizations to get to the Cloud end of June, the Cloud Productivity Solutions team has so far allocated 1.2 million licenses across the Microsoft ecosystem since the outbreak of the pandemic.

If you buy a high-end server and software, you will be paying for things, which you are UNDER UTILIZING. Most of these servers are operating under 15% maximum power. When it comes to the Cloud, some subscription even goes to as low as $4.5. In other words, you only pay for what you are using.

Jeremiah kibanga, CEO, Cloud productivity solutions

Kibanga is assertive that while making the decision for the big shift to the Cloud, an organization should look at this as a primary investment and hence steer off from hyperactive thoughts and perception that getting to the Cloud is pricey. if one is to breakdown the cost from IT perspective, then they would find the Cloud highly effective.

Here is an excerpt from the interview.

Who is Cloud Productivity Solutions, how from your viewpoint is the demand for onboarding customers on Cloud?

Thank you and first let me start by introducing Cloud Productivity Solutions. It is a 100 percent Kenyan owned company, started on 23 March 2015. We have been a Microsoft partner since then focusing on helping customers get value for their investment in Microsoft by empowering them to utilize the technologies they have paid for. This niche has granted us the opportunity to work with a number of or corporations, including SMEs and with learning institutions.

In 2018, Cloud Productivity Solutions scooped the Kenya Country Partner of the Year from Microsoft following the work we were doing within our customer ecosystem. In 2019, we retained the same award in Las Vegas and we were also declared the Global Teamwork Award Winners, a prestigious accolade that recognizes a company for supporting organizations to collaborate and work together ,kill the unnecessary silos and improve organization wide productivity using Microsoft solutions.

In a nutshell, that is who we are.

So what exactly do you do as one of Microsoft’s lead partners in Kenya?

We mainly focus on collaboration and security solutions. We want to make sure that when users in an organization are collaborating, they do so in a safe and secure digital space. While Microsoft has the solution, it is upon us to enable and empower the growing number of customers.

We are using the Microsoft collaboration suite, which is the 365 platform, which hosts the windows virtual desktop, it enables the desktop environment at the customer premise to be available on any device be it a laptop or a tablet.

Jeremiah Kibanga, CEO, Cloud Productivity Solutions.

Considering that this pandemic has come with a shift in the way work happens, the Cloud Productivity team took it seriously, upon deliberating through meetings. We asked what our contribution would be as an organization to help in flattening the curve. We cannot sit and wait for people to die and businesses to go bankrupt while our partner Microsoft was willing to support. We were gratified that Microsoft offered tools that would help institutions return to a new wave of normal.

As Cloud Productivity, we chose not to work for the money first, but for the continuity of businesses. We yearned for normalcy in terms of continuity.

Where did you start, since this must have been a very tough decision?

Tough indeed, but we started with our internal customers, we ensured that they can work remotely and securely. The first step was to run workshops. We demonstrated how they could have continuity in their businesses. Most organizations had no business continuity plans especially where people could not go to the office. They instead had continuity plans for a number of things such as data center infrastructure.

Equipped with this background, we organized technical teams into groups and aggressively embarked on the mission of talking to our customers, activating the Microsoft E1 trial with them, and as of now, we have been able to allocate almost 1.2 million licenses across the ecosystem. Although ambitious, our target is to help at least 200 customers within the region by the end of June. We have so far attained 107 customers.

Are these 200 customers mainly in the category of corporate clients?

No. We are focusing on corporate clients, learning institutions, and SMEs. We are convinced that what we are doing will help in reducing the rate of unemployment, since many people are already at risk of losing their jobs and this would negatively impact Kenya’s national economy.

As a company, we made the deliberate decision to have a conversation and help any organization with 100 and above users. We want to help them to ensure that their employees remain working.

What applications are you using to ensure that these companies uphold their workforce despite the ongoing crisis?

We are using the Microsoft365 platform for collaboration and security. We also have our VPN solution (Always On VPN) which enables access of applications hosted at the customers datacenters or Azure platforms anywhere, securely with full encryption.

One of the key concerns while getting to the Cloud has hinged on data security. How are you ensuring that the organizations that are accelerating their tempo to Cloud are getting that assurance?

To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft Cloud is the most secure cloud. Microsoft has heavily invested in data centers and certification for privacy, security, and data compliance. Its data centers have passed the most certifications in terms of data security and availability.

Microsoft has also invested so much to reinforce its security on the data center.  The Microsoft m365 platform guarantees data ownership. Under the policy, the data belongs to you and not to Microsoft.

In terms of applying security policies, one can as well go granular to the level of if sending an email to a recipient, which has a document; it can set a policy whereby the only person who can open that document is the recipient.

Separately, if that recipient is Humphrey and he forwards that document to anybody else, that document will go back and check on the security policies that apply, and if a new receiver is not on the logins, that document will not open.

While making the decision for the big shift to the Cloud, some entities become so hyperactive on costs. They perceive it as expensive. How do you help them deal with these kinds of fears?

It is good you have called it fears and perceptions because that is the true definition of their situation. Briefly, though, the cloud is not as expensive as people perceive, particularly when you compare all the cost implications to set up a mature infrastructure. This is because you will be operating on an OPEX not a CAPEX. Therefore, your charge is on an operational cost, of which you have control.

For example, if you are doing a subscription of 100 people for a cloud subscription, you will only be paying for 100 people, only for what you are using. If you buy a high-end server and software, you will be paying for things, which you are under utilizing. Most of these servers are operating under 15% maximum power. When it comes to the Cloud, some subscription even goes to as low as $4.5. In other words, you only only pay for what you are using.

Well, if you are to break it down, from an IT expert perspective, you will find the Cloud cost-effective considering; Cost of the datacenter hardware ,maintenance of the datacenter from power ,physical security and many other costs involved in maintaining a data center.  There would be more expensive in terms of upholding efficiency. In this time and era, you do not need to spend hours setting up systems to run your idea. Cloud gives you the flexibility and the ease, once you have conceptualized your idea and you want to move – just get a subscription and you are good to go.

Considering that disaster can strike any time on the cloud, is there a better recovery on the Cloud environment and why?

In terms of disaster recovery, Microsoft has invested in a number of data centers, a few years back we did not even have a data center in Africa, but now we do, in South Africa. When one data center is down, the services and information move to another data center.

Separately, a lot of high availability and redundancy configurations such that when one data center is not operating, nothing stops or stumbles. Recovery is assured, in case of any fault which can happen, the recovery time is very short and Microsoft has confidence in the way they built their infrastructure, they have a money-back SLA if your system goes down.

Another good thing, to the user level, Microsoft has the anti-ransomware protection where files get stored in different versions allowing easier and quicker recovery. One’s peace of mind is guaranteed with this system.

To what extent is the cloud solution providers bound by any governance and compliance requirements to ensure that they are secure with a sense of real privacy?

As of now in terms of privacy and data protection, we sign and are governed by a privacy policy where we cannot expose or share any customer information.

The systems we use to manage the customers infrastructure have complex passwords and multifactor authentication  enforced to avoid any hacking. Training on data protection and data privacy targets our employees and customers. Security is not only the system. People must know how they can fall victim to social engineering. You can only implement social engineering security by ensuring the user community is informed and educated about the tricks hackers use to compromise you.

Having related with so many clients, what are some of the obvious obstacles to the Cloud in Africa that tend to hinder the realization of the best practices?

In our region, the hindrances, which we see mostly, incline on connectivity. We have not covered our country at 100% in terms of data connectivity. Learning institutions need consistent and reliable connectivity, which we are yet to experience. However, the good news is that Telkom Kenya, one of the major telecommunication operators in the country has invested in google balloons and it is our hope that it will allow more users to have reliable connectivity. The good news is that somebody is doing something about it.

Finally, from the CSR perspective, what is your organization doing during this crisis period? Any particular form of training beyond your customers?

For one, Microsoft issuance of free licenses to learning institutions, non-profit organizations as part of the CSR, has as well prompted to execute free implementations. We are in this regard giving our professional services, to schools at no cost by configuring the systems and training the users. Primarily, this is to empower them to cope with the new norm. We are doing it as a service to our country and humanity.

Well, in closing, I would wish to encourage everyone that this pandemic should help us embrace the new norms of working. It gives us the opportunity to scale faster and allows us to be more productive.