A secure cloud for digital business models

In 2008, two students in San Francisco offered visitors to a local design fair air mattresses in their apartment as a cheap place to stay - including breakfast.

Seven years later, the online portal Airbnb is the largest "hotel operator" in the world, offering two million accommodations without owning a single bed. And with a valuation of 25.5 billion US dollars, Airbnb is more valuable than hotel giant Marriott.

This example from the sharing economy shows what a disruptive impact digital business models can have. The same applies to Uber and eBay, which have revolutionized entire industries with digital approaches.

For companies, it is essential to critically question themselves within the framework of traditional business models and to reinvent themselves. This is not only necessary for survival, but also worthwhile.

This is what the analysts' forecasts promise: Roland Berger predicts an additional value creation potential of EUR 425 billion for Germany alone by 2025 in the event of a successful digital transformation.

And according to estimates by the Boston Consulting Group, 390,000 new jobs will be created in this country over the next ten years as a result of Industry 4.0.

Providers also have some catching up to do when it comes to IT transformation. In its latest vendor benchmark, Experton certified that just seven IT providers out of 600 have the tools for digital transformation - with Deutsche Telekom right at the forefront.

Big Data needs the cloud

From a technical point of view, the cloud is paving the way for this digital transformation. Only it enables companies to develop new, digital business models. In the digital age, data is the basis for growth and innovation.

Only the cloud can collect and store the huge volumes of data that digitization brings centrally for all company locations. And only with the help of the cloud can this data be made usable quickly, intelligently and flexibly.

It is therefore at the heart of digital processes and products of the future. However, apart from basic standards such as scalability and affordability, the "data cloud" must meet important requirements: First and foremost are security and data protection.

Today, customer data is one of a company's most important assets. In times of the NSA affair and the Safe Harbor ruling, more and more national and international business customers attach great importance to the protection of their sensitive data.

Germany has a clear locational advantage here: The Federal Data Protection Act is one of the strictest laws on informational self-determination in the world. Personal data may only be released after personal consent or a court order.

And in highly secure German data centers, such as T-Systems' "Data Center Campus" in Biere, the data is protected against unauthorized access in the best possible way. Analog and digital security solutions as well as state-of-the-art encryption technologies ensure that data can only be viewed by authorized persons according to the "need-to-know principle".

In addition, Deutsche Telekom's "Cyber Defense Center" is continuously expanding security systems to detect and prevent new forms of hacker attacks on a broader scale.

Maximum availability

In addition to data security and data protection, maximum availability is also important. With comprehensive quality management, you can get very close to 100 percent. T-Systems' "Zero Outage" program, for example, combines preventive measures with structured management in the event of an emergency.

Redundant data center technology enables availability of up to 99.999 percent - which corresponds to a possible outage of only a few minutes per year. And to ensure that the interaction of platforms, processes and personnel runs smoothly in the event of an operational disruption, 500 emergency cases are simulated every year.

In addition, the cloud is always a topic of cooperation. Because if you want to develop new solutions, you can move faster with a network of competent partners. In this way, an IT provider can offer a cross-platform range of cloud services - innovative, manufacturer-independent and coherently coordinated.

In addition, the selection of the provider depends on proven transformation experience as well as process and industry expertise - in projects of any size.

Only in this way can the IT service provider offer its business customers the necessary security and quality that a reliable cloud solution demands. If these requirements are met, the cloud enables successful digitization - of processes, business models and entire companies.