The business world wasn’t born in the cloud … but it got here as fast as it could. As COVID-19 accelerates the move to digital operations, companies are reimagining themselves for a cloud-first era. And there to help them along are Amazon Web Services Inc. and Accenture plc.

“It’s a once-in-an-era re-platforming of businesses in the cloud,” said Karthik Narain (pictured), senior managing director and lead for the Accenture Cloud First group. “There’s no company that says, ‘We don’t believe in cloud’ or ‘We don’t want to do cloud.’”

Narain spoke with Rebecca Knight, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Executive Summit. They discussed why a cloud-first strategy is critical to business success. (* Disclosure below.)

Fail fast, succeed more

All companies may have converted to a belief in cloud computing, but there is no common-consensus in the ways they implement cloud within their businesses. And every company requires a holistic cloud-first strategy, according to Narain.

With a $3 billion investment and a team of 70,000 cloud experts, Accenture Cloud First brings that holistic strategy to its clients, enabling them to react fast in today’s ever-changing environment and stay ahead of the game.

“The cloud-first mindset is all about speed, about helping the clients fast-track their innovation journey,” Narain said.

Key to success is if employees can embrace the change in order to allow the organization to innovate at cloud speeds, according to Narain. “If they are able to change themselves, pivot themselves, retool and train themselves to be able to operate in this new cloud-first world, the ability to reimagine every function of the business would happen at speed,” he said.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us

Adding power to Accenture’s cloud-first drive is the company’s long partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc. Five years ago, the formation of the Accenture AWS Business Group formalized the relationship, and the companies work closely together to accelerate their clients’ cloud journeys.

“One great example is what we’re doing with Takeda Pharmaceutical,” Narain said. “We have created a power-of-three partnership, where the three organizations are jointly holding hands and taking responsibility.”

The goal is to transform the 230-year-old organization and make it a data-driven, cloud-first company. Imagining the information reserves the company has amassed over more than two centuries, Narain asked: “How about bringing all of that [data] together with the power of AWS and Accenture on Takeda to drive more customer insights, come up with breakthrough research and development, accelerate clinical trials, and improve the patient experience using artificial intelligence, machine learning and edge technologies?”

The unprecedented adoption of cloud across every country and sector is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, according to Narain. He believes these changes will herald an increase in global productivity and a blurring of the boundaries between physical, digital and biological fields.

“Cloud is going to be the connective tissue between all of these three,” Narain said. “Cloud-first is going to be plowing through this big change that is going to happen and the evolution that is going to happen.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Executive Summit. Neither Accenture, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE