Improved internet services in Papua New Guinea present businesses with opportunities to transform the way they work. Amazon Web Service’s Craig Lawton offers some timely advice on what ‘the cloud’ can offer.

With improved internet connectivity in Papua New Guinea, more businesses are looking at moving their business into the cloud. PNG’s Department of ICT has also recently launched its Digital Government Plan 2023–2027: a blueprint for moving government services online, which aims to build on early successes such as the Immigration and Citizenship Authority’s online visa system.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the IT services arm of one of the world’s largest companies, Amazon. Launched in 2006 as a web hosting service, it now offers over 200 cloud-based services to companies across the world.

At the recent 2022 Business Advantage Papua New Guinea Investment Conference, Craig Lawton, AWS’ Senior Manager, Solutions Architecture outlined some of the benefits of taking your business into the cloud.

Here are six.

1. Developing services in the cloud allows businesses to be agile

‘The primary benefit is agility. This is the ability to respond quickly and build new customer facilities and great customer experiences,’ Lawton says. ‘It is the ability to respond to security threats if they come up because you have the ability to see, through software, everything that is happening in your environment.’

One example of such agility was the quick launch of many new services during COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Governments in particular were able to respond very quickly during the pandemic,’ says Lawton.

2. Cloud computing is safe

It can seem disconcerting at first to have your businesses data and applications hosted offshore but AWS has thousands of the world’s largest technology and consulting companies using its cloud computing services.

As Lawton puts, with technologies such as encryption, data keys and online security protocols, your data is often safer in the cloud than it would be on your own office server.

3. There are significant cost savings

In the cloud, you only pay for what you use. You do not have to buy new software, licenses and equipment every time you have an idea. You can use the applications in the cloud and only pay for what you need, and start-up costs are low.

‘You only need a credit card to start building a business in the cloud,’ says Lawton.

AWS’s Craig Lawton during his presentation at the 2022 Papua New Guinea Investment Conference. Credit: Stefan Daniljchenko/BAI

4. Cloud businesses are elastic

It is easier both to scale up to meet higher demand – or an emergency– or scale down in quieter times. This allows you to control costs in a downturn.

Lawton used the Australian Census, which AWS hosted, as an example: a project with a slow build-up followed by a short period of great activity, followed by quieter activity again.

5. The cloud makes innovation easier and faster

With cloud-based application and services, ‘you are lowering the cost of failure, so you can try many more things,’ Lawton says. ‘You don’t have to invest in 100s of thousands or millions of dollars worth of hardware and capability before you can try something out.’

6. You can go global in minutes

If your idea takes off, having it reside in the cloud means that any business, anywhere in the world, can access it.

‘If you are an innovator, an entrepreneur or a creator with a digital solution or digital product, you can deploy it in our Marketplace. We have millions of active customers in all industries and if your product is relevant for them, you can put it in the AWS Marketplace and deploy it for their account and it’s that easy.’