Indeed, McKinsey in a recent report observed that businesses have leapfrogged seven years of DX progress in a matter of months¹. And as cloud technology matures and workloads are shifted to public clouds more quickly than anticipated, there is an accelerated migration to the cloud^2.

While much of the shift towards the cloud in the past revolved around the use of standalone cloud services or shifting legacy systems to cloud servers, the situation is fast changing. As SMBs seek to maximise the benefits of the cloud, they are undertaking deeper technological transformation to enable superior experiences and a faster time to market.

Regardless of industry sectors, businesses now see the benefits of cloud applications designed and tailored specifically to address their unique business requirements. Instead of generic cloud solutions that they must learn and adapt to, they are turning to a new generation of versatile cloud native applications designed to deliver exactly what they need.

Unlike the first generation of cloud applications that were in reality traditional – and highly siloed – IT solutions migrated to the cloud, cloud native applications are developed with the cloud in mind. This gives them the inherent capability to exchange data and interoperate with other cloud native applications, giving SMBs the agility to react immediately to new business challenges.

At its heart, a cloud native approach is the use of independent, loosely coupled cloud services working together to deliver the digital capabilities that business requires to thrive and pull ahead. Unsurprisingly, leading organisations such as Netflix and WeChat³ have turned to cloud native development to accelerate their business velocity and growth.

With a cloud infrastructure that incorporates cloud native paradigms such as microservices and automation, SMEs can similarly gain the speed and agility to get new ideas to market quickly. Below are some advantages that cloud native applications offer over traditional solutions:

• Speed: Time to market is often a crucial differentiator irrespective of market segments. When paired with modern development practices such as DevOps, cloud native applications can be developed and deployed in significantly less time than before to meet market changes.
• Scalability and resilience: Cloud native applications are inherently scalable and can automatically provision the needed cloud resources, including releasing them when they are no longer required. This flexibility offers superior resilience over traditional applications.
• Flexibility: A cloud native approach also helps businesses keep pace with rapid changes. When new capabilities are required, cloud native applications can be easily extended through API calls to existing or newly developed cloud services without going through a costly and time-consuming development cycle.

Coupled with the effortless interoperability between cloud native applications and better cost-effectiveness over legacy software suites, SMBs that deploy modern applications are well-positioned to fully leverage cloud computing and stay ahead of their competitors.

A cloud native paradigm calls for the structuring of applications as a collection of cloud services working together. Application development will need to change with the adoption of a new agile development process by the organisation and will impact a range of applications from inventory management system, asset tracking solution, or even stock trading applications.

In its report “Cloud Native, application development at the speed of business”, Accenture offers some simple steps for organisations seeking to deepen their maturity in cloud native development⁴. Recommendations include organising teams around specific services or capabilities, incorporating modern and up-to-date architectures such as microservices, and rearchitecting the organisation to keep pace with cloud native development.

One initial hurdle faced by SMBs is the difficulty of taking the first step to redesign their existing IT deployment around microservices, and to develop their first cloud native applications. Moreover, the development team will need access to the tools and training to create truly cloud native applications.

With our pool of accredited and experienced cloud architects, Singtel can lend our expertise to facilitate the entire end-to-end process to help businesses succeed on their cloud native journey. Aside from assisting with process redesign and development, our experts can also conduct the requisite training for developers, empowering them to drive tangible business results in the shortest amount of time.

Finally, Singapore businesses that want to grow and transform by developing new cloud native applications to innovate and enhance their productivity can seek assistance from the Enterprise Development Grant. Funding of up to 80% of project costs is available until 30 September 2021 for qualifying projects. This includes third party consultancy fees, software and equipment, and internal manpower cost such as the salary of the team required for the project.

Find out more about how Singtel can help you here.