The ability to shift to remote operations fast and smoothly is a major test for a company’s digital operations. One company that just underwent the trial by fire is TC Energy Corp., which is responsible for keeping the lights on for more than 6 million homes and businesses across Canada and the U.S.

“Literally, we went from a ‘Hey, we should start thinking about working from home?’ sort of on a Wednesday, Thursday, and by Monday, the entire company was working from home,” said Chris Foster (pictured), vice president of information services and chief information officer of TC Energy.

Foster spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Summit Online event. They discussed TC Energy’s digital transformation journey and how it has changed the company culture almost overnight, in large part thanks to the cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Business as usual, despite the pandemic

“No big deal” is how Foster described TC Energy’s rapid switch to remote operations. “We were telling our stakeholders the delivery dates haven’t changed,” he said.

The flexibility that comes with cloud adoption is a big benefit, not only for TC Energy itself, but for its business partners. “If you want more compute power than you’ve ever had before … give me an hour and we’ll have it for you,” Foster said. Then, if on Monday “you change your mind and you decide that that idea you had wasn’t so great after all, that’s fine. I’ll just turn it off for you,” he added. “In the old days if you phoned me on Monday and said it was a bad idea, I’d say, ‘Well, that’s great, but I already bought the server and you’re living with it for five years.”  

Culture wise, Foster appreciates how the organization’s technical employees are now much more involved in the bottom line of the business. He tells a story about a meeting where a member of the technical department spoke to high-level executives, and at the end of the meeting, one vice president approached him to ask what department the speaker worked in. When Foster responded that he was a member of the information systems team, the VP was in disbelief.

“There’s this kind of meshing now,” Foster said. “We’re blurring the lines now between IS and the business.”

Focus on the technology is Foster’s advice for businesses planning for the future. “Our partnership with AWS has given us access to great technology,” he said. “We know we’re entering a digital world. We know that things are gonna look differently when we come back. We may not know what they are yet, but companies are gonna continue to need great technology. Focus on that, because that’s what you can control.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Summit Online event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Summit Online event. Neither Amazon Web Services, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE