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Why South African retailers are moving to the cloud

February 19, 2019

Electrum Payments

More and more businesses are making the jump to the cloud. We take a look at what kind of businesses can benefit, and how the cloud is helping to lower costs, improve reliability and more.

Electrum works with some of the largest retail and banking operations on the continent. Over the past few years, we’ve convinced them that the cloud is where they need to be, and helped them move their legacy systems – with great benefit to their organisations. Among these benefits are reduced cost, faster speed to market, enhanced scalability, ease of compliance with regulations, improved reliability, easy monitoring and more frequent platform releases.

Electrum helps businesses find ways to leverage the cloud to further their operational goals

Many businesses are great candidates to take advantage of a move to cloud. A familiar scenario we’ve encountered is with an already large business that’s in a growth phase, either through expansion or acquisition. Businesses like this inevitably amass sizeable and complex IT structures. Consolidating legacy systems in the conventional way is an arduous and expensive task, with each system’s limitations having to be addressed individually. What’s more, it means engaging with separate vendors, all of whom have their own pricing models.

Typical complexities clients want to resolve are the duplication of functions, and the limitations of highly customised systems that are only applicable to a small section of their business. Electrum has helped businesses like Massmart and Clicks to improve their IT infrastructure, and beyond that, to find ways to leverage the cloud to further their operational goals.

Electrum's cloud technology offers clients elbow room to innovate, while meeting all the strict compliance standards…

Cloud computing is the ideal solution because of the efficiency and value it offers. Electrum’s cloud solution is able to reduce in-house infrastructure assets, and improve the stability and security in the client’s systems. Many of our clients have been able to leapfrog their legacy technologies and are no longer dependent on specific systems, which require a considerable initial investment and time-consuming, expensive upgrades. Electrum's cloud technology offers them elbow room to innovate, while meeting all the strict compliance standards large corporations must adhere to, including ISO 27000, ISO 27001, PCI, POPIA and OWASP.

Since major, trusted corporations like Microsoft, Amazon and Google began offering cloud technology, much of the fear around loss of control, reliability and security has disappeared. Two Microsoft Azure data centres are due to go live in South Africa in 2019, while Amazon plans to open AWS (Amazon Web Services) centres locally, starting in 2020. Not only will the local centres improve latency, but they’ll ensure clients comply with a crucial stipulation of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) that user data should not move abroad without consent.

…a stable platform for the high volume of transactions our clients conduct…

The result of a shift to the cloud means our clients can expand their businesses, safe in the knowledge that their IT systems will support innovative offerings and operations in new regions. What’s more, our SaaS offers a stable platform for the high volume of transactions our clients conduct with customers every day.

If you think your business should be leveraging the cloud for better value, agility and stability, talk to Electrum today.

Electrum Payments

Electrum provides transaction processing solutions to banks, retailers, and MNOs, helping them to find better ways to transact. As a vibrant and innovative SaaS company, we deliver industry-leading expertise and technology to solve real problems every day.

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