Drive for Nordic datacentre transformation
Summary
According to Manoj Chandra Jha, lead analyst at ISG, some Nordic businesses struggle to see rapid returns on their investment in cloud computing, which is to be expected. Jha said: “Enterprises in the region have some key concerns, such as lack of skilled talent, siloed operating models, inadequate governance capabilities, cyber security challenges, an inability to innovate and inadequate technology suppliers in emerging areas.” This explains the breadth of the IT trends in the region, which include not just increased spending on cloud (including hybrid cloud) computing, but also hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), artificial intelligence for operations (AIOps), SaaS security and containerisation. Containerisation skills are, again, mainly being sourced from outside providers, many of whom have strategic partnerships with Kubernetes for the supply of containers as a service (CaaS) and are focusing on training their staff accordingly. “This is a win-win situation for both clients and SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] as they get to deploy the model wherever necessary.” All these methods and systems require considerable expertise to get right, which is a major reason why Nordic organisations are outsourcing IT – they need to have access to the necessary skills. For example, the TietoEvry merger now targets large enterprises clients to drive their digital transformation journey, Orange’s acquisition of Basefarm has increased its overall portfolio and position, and Nordcloud is emerging as one of the niche IT service providers across hyperscalers.