Astro: Leveraging Data for Customer-Driven Service.

Questions:

1. What considerations should a firm have when moving to a cloud-based infrastructure such as Astro’s?

2. Why is it necessary to review current business processes?

3. How will data analytics benefit Astro, and how will AI services such as Amazon’s Athena facilitate this?

Solution:

1. What considerations should a firm have when moving to a cloud-based infrastructure such as Astro’s?

When transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure, a firm like Astro must consider several strategic, technical, and organizational factors. Foremost among these is data security, as the migration entails transferring sensitive business data to third-party servers. According to Rittinghouse and Ransome (2016), firms must ensure robust encryption, access control, and compliance with international security standards such as ISO/IEC 27001. Astro must also address data sovereignty concerns, ensuring compliance with regional laws governing data storage and privacy, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for European operations (Pearson & Benameur, 2010).

Scalability is another crucial consideration. The cloud offers elastic computing power that can adjust to changing demand levels, thereby enhancing operational flexibility (Armbrust et al., 2010). However, this requires a careful analysis of the firm’s workload characteristics and performance expectations. Interoperability with legacy systems must also be prioritized to ensure smooth integration, as operational disruptions can occur when systems fail to communicate effectively.

Moreover, Astro should assess the financial impact of cloud adoption, not only in terms of initial migration costs but also long-term benefits such as reduced hardware expenditures and improved disaster recovery capabilities (Marston et al., 2011). Finally, the organizational culture must be ready to embrace digital transformation, requiring targeted training and change management strategies to facilitate user adoption and minimize resistance.

2. Why is it necessary to review current business processes?

The review of existing business processes is essential when implementing transformative technologies like cloud computing. For Astro, this exercise ensures that legacy workflows align with the firm’s evolving strategic goals and technological capabilities. Business process reengineering (BPR) allows the company to identify inefficiencies, reduce redundancies, and leverage automation opportunities (Hammer & Champy, 2009).

Without such review, new technologies may be constrained by outdated practices, leading to suboptimal performance and limited return on investment. As Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) emphasize, digital innovation yields the greatest benefits when it is coupled with complementary changes in organizational processes and decision-making frameworks.

Through the lens of enterprise architecture, aligning IT infrastructure with business strategy ensures coherence and synergy across departments (Ross, Weill & Robertson, 2006). Astro’s review thus enables better responsiveness to market dynamics, enhances data visibility, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. The process also supports compliance, accountability, and efficiency benchmarks crucial for maintaining a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving digital economy.

3. How will data analytics benefit Astro, and how will AI services such as Amazon’s Athena facilitate this?

Data analytics provides Astro with a powerful toolset for extracting strategic insights from structured and unstructured data sources. Through techniques such as predictive modelling, clustering, and regression analysis, Astro can better understand consumer behaviour, forecast market trends, and optimize supply chain operations (Davenport & Harris, 2007). This data-driven approach enhances decision-making, reduces uncertainty, and improves customer targeting.

AI services like Amazon Athena extend these capabilities by enabling serverless SQL queries over datasets stored in Amazon S3, allowing real-time analysis without the need for provisioning dedicated infrastructure (Amazon Web Services, n.d.). Athena’s compatibility with business intelligence tools and support for standard query languages ensures accessibility for both technical and non-technical users.

According to Gandomi and Haider (2015), big data analytics is most effective when integrated with AI systems that enable natural language processing, pattern recognition, and machine learning. For Astro, this integration facilitates scalable analysis, democratizes access to insights, and encourages cross-functional collaboration. As outlined in the case study, Athena can significantly reduce latency in accessing and querying datasets, thereby accelerating Astro’s strategic responsiveness and operational efficiency.

References

Amazon Web Services. (n.d.). Amazon Athena. Retrieved from https://aws.amazon.com/athena/ 

Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., ... & Zaharia, M. (2010). A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), 50–58.

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. W.W. Norton & Company.

Davenport, T. H., & Harris, J. G. (2007). Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning. Harvard Business Press.

Gandomi, A., & Haider, M. (2015). Beyond the hype: Big data concepts, methods, and analytics. International Journal of Information Management, 35(2), 137–144.

Hammer, M., & Champy, J. (2009). Reengineering the Corporation: Manifesto for Business Revolution. HarperBusiness.

Marston, S., Li, Z., Bandyopadhyay, S., Zhang, J., & Ghalsasi, A. (2011). Cloud computing—The business perspective. Decision Support Systems, 51(1), 176–189.

Pearson, S., & Benameur, A. (2010). Privacy, security and trust issues arising from cloud computing. In 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (pp. 693–702). IEEE.

Rittinghouse, J. W., & Ransome, J. F. (2016). Cloud Computing: Implementation, Management, and Security. CRC Press.

Ross, J. W., Weill, P., & Robertson, D. (2006). Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Press.

Published by: HR Forum News