Kashif Ali has been in the cloud, information security, and connectivity space for almost two decades now. As a founding member of the enterprise cloud movement in Pakistan; he is well versed with digital transformation and virtualization trends and how the market is shaping up across the region.
- Cloud computing is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2030 due to firms extensively moving towards digital enablement and remote access technologies. How is the Pakistani market growing with respect to global changes?
ANS: The world shifted its habits and learned new ways to go about their daily lives when the Pandemic hit. The need to digitise processes and operations for every task; be it at home, or at work became more and more inevitable. Hence, we could see one of the biggest booms in the use of digital tools and the adoption of technology across all industries.
Pakistan was no stranger to the pandemic. More and more businesses were forced to shut down their physical operations and cater to customers virtually. We saw companies like Indolj. emerge to cater to customers’ VIA cloud-based, restaurant ordering systems. Digital payments also became a big thing, with news players like Payfast by APPS emerging on the scene. All this innovation and business process digitisation could not have happened, without the cloud. As per Google, Pakistan’s internet penetration stands at over 54% now, where the cloud is a huge part of the digital shift and will continue to enable Pakistan.
- What is the penetration rate of cloud computing in Pakistan in terms of organizations adopting and implementing these technologies in their operational value chains?
ANS: The shift to cloud computing and acclimatizing the workforce to use digital tools is not as easy as it seems. We have seen some state-owned entities shift to the cloud, because of the ministries’ support (in terms of building policies around on-site and offsite data hosting) and we have seen private sector firms also virtualise, mostly because of cost savings and operational efficiencies, etc.
While providing an exact number in terms of adoption is not easy, Organizations across Pakistan are using international cloud-based options but they are also building trust on local cloud service providers. That is why companies like ours have built multi-country, multi-cloud scenarios, that give organisations across Pakistan, the freedom to choose.
- How has Pakistan’s cloud computing market evolved post-pandemic? Do you believe that the changes witnessed in this sector will be sustainable if we look at the long-term future perspective?
ANS: As mentioned earlier as far as Pakistan is concerned, before the pandemic, most of the sectors and industries were not native to the concept of cloud computing. When the Pandemic hit and organisations had to shift to remote working conditions, they realised the dire need to transform their business operations and move towards cloud & cloud-based solutions.
One of the biggest challenges with respect to the growth of Cloud Computing is the knowledge to do infrastructure sizing properly and the human capital required to build and run cloud-native apps. For the cloud to move forward we need to trust in and build local infrastructure, that can facilitate the industry and train and certify our people to cater to cloud support, queries, and migration scenarios.
- Which industries rely on cloud computing the most? Moreover, for those segments that are not yet utilizing cloud technologies, how can they implement them or be convinced to shift their traditional systems towards cloud-based ones?
ANS: Most if not all industries do rely on the cloud in some form or the other. Whether it is Infrastructure based queries/demands, Software-as-a-service based requirements, etc. all industries that are on the road to digitisation and are opening themselves up to a global audience will need to move to the cloud.
For organisations that are still catering to local audiences, or have strict information security concerns, there are many local options for private cloud scenarios, that help them optimise costs and create future-proof systems.
- What are the challenges that your organization faces in a market like Pakistan that has been relatively slow in accepting numerous technologies that are now prevalently used globally?
ANS: The biggest challenge/opportunity is education; at the customer, end and also at the industry end as well. At Redrackx we spend a significant amount of time educating customers on how they can evolve their legacy infrastructural roadmaps and can subscribe to a virtual stack that gives them access to; global destinations, the latest SaaS/PaaS-based offerings, cost optimization, and risk mitigation scenarios.
- What opportunities does Redrackx see in the Pakistani market and how are you working on realizing these effectively?
ANS: At Redrackx, we are a multi country cloud service provider. Our edge is our localisation and our global alliances. This gives our customers access to an on-demand cloud. We employ some of the best talents in Pakistan; and that talent is further incubated, with international certifications, experience, and our international knowledge base. Our objective is to be the best at what we do, and that works very well for the market and for our customers.
