Cloud as part of the digital strategy

Today, digital transformation is decisive for competitiveness, innovative strength and sustainable growth. Markets are changing ever faster, customers expect digital services in real time and new competitors are emerging with purely digital business models. Companies are therefore faced with the challenge of understanding IT not just as a support function, but as a strategic success factor.

Cloud services play a central role in this. They form the technological backbone of modern digital strategies and enable companies to implement innovations faster, act more agile and significantly shorten their time-to-market. In this article, we show why cloud computing is much more than just an infrastructure issue and give companies tips on how they can use the cloud in a targeted manner to successfully shape their digital transformation.

Industry 4.0: digitization

The fourth industrial revolution is omnipresent in the manufacturing industry. Digitalization is enabling companies to achieve significant productivity gains.

While the topics surrounding Industry 4.0 and IIoT were mainly discussed in the research environment for a long time, it is now clear to most managers that no company can escape the current technological leap in the long term. The constantly growing demands on productivity, quality and flexibility require managers to continuously improve processes using innovative digital solutions. “Standing still is going backwards” applies more than ever in the age of Industry 4.0.

The consistent introduction of digital solutions is a complex and often lengthy process. On the other hand, resources are almost always limited, which is why a clear prioritization of the planned digitalization activities is essential. With a clear digital strategy, the necessary measures can be properly planned.

Understanding digital strategy: Why technology alone is not enough

A digital strategy encompasses more than just the introduction of new tools or software solutions. It describes a holistic approach that combines technology, processes, organization and corporate culture.

The central objectives of a digital strategy are:

• Increased efficiency through automation
• Improving the customer experience
• Development of new digital products and services,
• faster response to market changes.

The cloud is not an end in itself, but makes these goals technically feasible in the first place.

What does cloud mean in the context of digital strategy?

As part of the digital strategy, the cloud stands for flexible, scalable and needs-based IT resources. Instead of planning and operating hardware in the long term, companies obtain computing power, storage space, platforms and software as a service.

Typical cloud models are:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): flexible infrastructure for maximum control
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): development platforms without operating costs
• Software as a Service (SaaS): ready-made applications from the cloud

Depending on the requirements, public cloud, private cloud or hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are used. Hybrid models in particular are often an important intermediate step in the digital transformation.

The cloud as a strategic foundation

• Digital core: A well-thought-out cloud strategy creates the basis for a digital core and a resilient and future-proof IT architecture that can withstand change.
• Cultural change: The introduction of the cloud promotes closer collaboration between departments (e.g. through DevOps) and drives a modern, technology-oriented corporate culture.

Digital progress through cloud services

In 2026, the cloud will become the fundamental operating system of the digital economy. It is no longer just a storage location, but the primary driver of business transformation.

This is how cloud services drive the strategic core objectives forward.

Promoting innovation with cloud services: Low barriers to entry for new ideas

Cloud services significantly lower the entry barriers for innovations. New projects no longer require high initial investments. Resources are available within minutes and can be adapted at any time.

This makes it possible:

• Rapid validation of new business ideas: The cloud enables the development and provision of new, service-oriented products and digital platforms.
• Building prototypes and MVPs: Teams can implement and test new ideas within minutes, drastically shortening innovation cycles.
• Innovation projects parallel to day-to-day business: Innovation projects can be launched alongside day-to-day business without interfering with it.
• Access to future technologies: Cloud platforms offer immediate access to advanced services without the need to build your own expensive infrastructure.

Modern cloud platforms offer integrated services for:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning: companies use pre-trained models via APIs to scale AI applications quickly.
• Big data and analytics: Huge, diverse volumes of data can be easily collected, processed and analyzed.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Simple networking with the Internet enables independent data exchange and the automation of tasks.
• Serverless computing: Serverless enables the simple provision of developed solutions. Developers can create applications without having to worry about the underlying server infrastructure.
• Edge computing: The cloud enables data to be processed directly at the point of origin (IoT), enabling new business models in Industry 4.0.
• Rapid prototyping: New ideas can be tested in isolated cloud environments (sandboxes) without any risk to the existing IT infrastructure.

Companies can use these technologies without having to set up their own teams of experts or complex infrastructures.

Increasing agility through cloud-native architectures: scalability as a basic principle

A key feature of the cloud is its scalability. Applications grow with requirements: automatically and without long lead times.

This is particularly important for:

• Marketing campaigns
• seasonal load peaks
• rapid company growth.
• Microservices, containers and Kubernetes

Cloud-native architectures are often based on microservices and containers. Technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes make it possible to operate applications in a modular, resilient and highly automated manner.

Advantages for companies:

• Greater reliability: Redundancy, automation and robust backup and disaster recovery plans minimize risks such as downtime.
• Better maintainability: Maintenance work can be carried out flexibly without major downtime.
• Elastic scalability: Resources (memory, computing power) can be dynamically scaled up or down as required, allowing a rapid response to peak loads or growth phases.
• Flexibility: Companies can react more quickly to changing business requirements without having to wait for lengthy hardware procurement.
• Support for agile methods: Cloud solutions facilitate agile processes by enabling short feedback loops and fast release cycles.

Increase speed: The cloud as an accelerator for shorter development and release cycles

Cloud environments form the basis for modern development models such as DevOps, CI/CD and infrastructure as code. Infrastructure is versioned, provided automatically and seamlessly integrated into development processes.

The result:

• Releases in minutes instead of months: Technological services and infrastructure can be provided within minutes instead of weeks or months.
• Faster troubleshooting: Errors can be rectified quickly without causing major downtime.
• Higher software quality: Continuous updates guarantee high software quality.
• Accelerated time-to-market: The rapid availability of resources and more efficient development processes accelerate the market launch of new products and services.
• More efficient workflows: Automation and standardized processes (e.g. infrastructure as code) accelerate the entire IT operation.

Numerous operating processes can be automated with cloud-native tools:

• Monitoring & alerting: Both the setup and the evaluation can be carried out conveniently so that all relevant information can be kept in view at all times.
• Backup & recovery: Is performed automatically in the cloud so that users do not have to worry about possible backup and recovery measures.
• Security scans and patching: Vulnerabilities are found by automated scans and directly remedied by risk-based, often automated updates.
• DevOps and CI/CD: Automated deployment chains enable software teams to publish updates daily instead of quarterly.
• Low-code/no-code: Specialist departments can create their own applications via cloud interfaces without having to wait for scarce IT developer capacities.
• Standardization: Ready-made cloud frameworks eliminate the time-consuming configuration of physical servers.

IT teams gain time for strategic tasks instead of routine operations.

Security, compliance and governance

Security is a central component of any digital strategy. Leading cloud providers invest heavily in security, certifications and compliance standards.

Important aspects:

• Identity & Access Management (IAM): Framework that manages digital identities and regulates access to cloud-based resources to ensure that the right people can access the right things at the right time.
• Encryption of data: Cloud encryption converts data into unreadable ciphertext before it is stored in the cloud to protect it from unauthorized access.
• GDPR-compliant cloud setups: Cloud setups are subject to high data protection requirements and guidelines and are therefore operated in compliance with the GDPR.
• Clear responsibilities in the shared responsibility model: Responsibilities with regard to safety are clearly defined.

In many cases, the cloud offers a higher level of security than traditional on-premises infrastructures.

Success factors for cloud integration

For the cloud to be fully effective, companies should consider the following points:

• Clear definition of goals within the digital strategy: Companies must define which business goals they want to achieve with the cloud so that technology decisions contribute to the company’s success in a targeted and measurable way.
• Training of employees and teams: New technologies can only be used efficiently, operated securely and continuously developed if specialist and IT teams have the necessary cloud expertise.
• Step-by-step migration instead of big bang: An iterative migration reduces risks, enables early learning success and ensures that applications and processes are transferred to the cloud in a controlled and stable manner.
• Use of managed services for operations and security: Managed services relieve the burden on internal teams, ensure stable, secure cloud operations and guarantee that best practices and compliance requirements are met.

The cloud is not a one-off project, but a continuous transformation process that requires regular optimization, adaptation to new requirements and technological development.

Conclusion: The cloud as a strategic foundation for digital transformation

A modern digital strategy views the cloud as an enabler. While IT was often a bottleneck in the past, the cloud now enables a “fail-fast” culture: innovations are tested cost-effectively, scaled globally immediately if successful and discontinued if unsuccessful without incurring permanent hardware costs. The cloud is therefore the strategic foundation for innovation, agility and speed in the digital transformation.

Companies that consistently integrate cloud services into their digital strategy benefit from:

• faster innovation cycles
• greater flexibility
• Reduced costs and risks
• sustainable business models

If you want to remain competitive in the long term, there is no way around a clearly defined cloud strategy.