CASE STUDY
However , if you are going to move to the cloud , you should not think that it is managed by someone else . You must own it through a cloud centre of excellence at the core of your cloud operations . You must also have the skills and take responsibility for onboarding SaaS applications . You must master this approach , not simply buy it and expect the vendor to manage it for you .
From my perspective , the cloud is so fundamental to your digital future that you need to control it .
Can you discuss Green Cargo ’ s strategic objectives and what you hope to achieve by 2030 ? organisation slowly acts like an organism , the cloud becomes the core where all of this activity must happen .
The biggest challenge for our industry sector is growth and profitability . Our second biggest priority is helping to reduce carbon emissions , as rail transport is more effective than trucks . Every weekday , we operate some 400 freight trains , thereby replacing around 9,000 truckloads .
What do you notice about the Nordic region when it comes to Digital Transformation processes – how does it compare to the global picture ?
Historically , Silicon Valley has been considered the hub for innovation , but this is changing . Though there is a shift in market dynamics , the Nordics remains one of the most innovative regions in the world . Sweden is one of the top five countries in the world if measured by a global index on innovation . Difficult to say why that ’ s the case , perhaps it stems from the great culture and people .
How do you think companies can achieve Digital Transformation without necessarily embarking on a forced march to the cloud ?
The reality is that without the cloud it creates challenges for CIOs in this world of Digital Composable Enterprises . You cannot build the digital future of IT in traditional data centres , as it is difficult to scale and grow on a path of Digital Transformation and innovation from global hyperscalers .
This is the future of Green Cargo , so IT must support these objectives , which means helping us to become a tech- and data-driven logistics company .
We have built several enterprise applications to digitalise operations , which we have done with our OutSystems low code development platform . This has given us a lot of new data points on the way business processes work , which has enabled us to challenge the company to adapt to this new way of working . We have built applications connecting to our mainframe , which enables operators through a dashboard to move wagons and change their position in a train before the wagon is moved . The operator then gets an automatic booking confirmation from the mainframe in nearly real-time .
We have built a customer portal , which is unique in our industry in Europe . Customers are now able to make their transactions much simpler than ever before by either logging on the portal or using one of the hundreds of APIs we have developed . We have also connected our customers in heavy industries into this network , so we can optimise how we support them integrated with their core business processes .
There continues to be a perception around security and the risks associated with the cloud , but my CISO ’ s response is how can you make the right level of investment in our own data centre to rival the hyperscalers ? As a CIO and CDO , I think it is possible to manage the risks ( such as data security and privacy ) and frankly , there is a greater risk if you don ’ t move to the cloud .
We have also built core data models , which take data and business logic from different integrations and systems .
We are currently working on a project with a US tech startup combining internal capabilities with AI to analyse capacity planning with complex but predeveloped AI models .
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