Hyve Co-Founder on Cloud's Potential to Transform Logistics

Logistics is a fast-paced industry involving several participants – from senders to carriers to customers – whose moving parts don't necessarily bear volatility well.

For maximum efficiency and performance, organisations operating in logistics and across supply chains must streamline their IT processes with a focus on limiting disruption and unpredictability.

Here, Supply Chain Digital sits down with Jake Madders, Co-Founder and Director at Hyve Managed Hosting, to discuss the cloud's potential to transform the logistics industry.

Tell us about Hyve Managed Hosting

Hyve Managed Hosting is a fully-managed cloud hosting provider headquartered in Brighton, UK and operating globally. We deliver bespoke cloud services, specialising in managed VMware private cloud solutions and bare metal servers with high-performance, scalability and resilience built in.

Basically, we empower companies to innovate and grow by helping them work out the most effective way to set up their cloud environments. We also manage these environments to make sure they are optimised, running efficiently and capitalising on the business opportunities the cloud provides. For supply chain and logistics companies, this means helping migrate away from legacy infrastructure towards the cloud with solutions that support on-demand transport management and ERP software.

My co-founder, Jon Lucas, and I started the company because we saw a gap in the market where expensive hyperscalers offering poor customer service weren’t allowing companies to unlock the transformative benefits of the cloud. Our unique approach of providing extra-mile support alongside best-in-class hosting architecture has seen us grow from a startup in 2001 to an established alternative cloud company with a global customer base.

What does your role at Hyve entail?

I come from a background in IT infrastructure, while Jon’s expertise is rooted in software. We work together to bring our individual knowledge bases to shape the company's overall direction. I chart the roadmap for project management and cloud architecture and analyse market trends, identify opportunities and formulate growth strategies.

The real secret to our continued success, though, is our professional, dynamic and talented team. I actively participate in recruitment to ensure we hire individuals who align with our values and mission. By hand-picking exceptional talent, we hope to continue creating a high-performing workforce to drive the company toward its goals. At the same time, maintaining a fun and cohesive office environment founded on open communication, cross-level collaboration and mutual respect is always high on our list of priorities. Our frequent Great Place to Work awards, fast growth and the fact everyone comes to the office almost every day – not because they have to but because they genuinely enjoy it – hopefully show we're doing something right.

How can the logistics industry leverage the benefits of the cloud?

For businesses that centre a large part of their business models around logistics services, moving to the cloud also means big cost savings, while a unified communications environment will further streamline processes and improve quality levels.

Migrating away from legacy technology towards the cloud allows businesses in logistics to support the integration of IT processes, which will provide tangible benefits day to day, such as data analytics and automation. What’s more, the cloud helps guarantee the availability and resilience of IT environments. Cloud architecture can be designed with no single point of failure, allowing organisations to meet growing customer demands without impacting performance. For our customers, managed hosting also means ensuring engineers are on hand round-the-clock, monitoring cloud environments and acting on alerts in real-time to resolve any issues before they affect operations or cause delays.

Furthermore, the cloud provides improved visibility and traceability, providing real-time access to inventory levels, shipment locations and other vital data, while keeping mission-critical data secure. This enables logistics businesses to quickly identify and address bottlenecks, enhance efficiency and make more informed decisions.

Cloud also has the potential to significantly reduce costs for businesses in this space by consolidating multiple workloads onto a single server through virtualisation. This is particularly advantageous for logistic businesses that experience fluctuating workloads, as they can easily add or remove resources as necessary without requiring additional investments in hardware or software.

How can logistics businesses and teams ensure they choose the right cloud solution?

Because of the very specific needs of the industry, logistics companies need to make sure they’re investing in a cloud approach that works for their business and grows with them as they scale and attract more customers.

Opting for an off-the-shelf public cloud vendor can initially seem like an easy solution, but it’s important to think about whether a hyperscaler will assess individual business requirements and help to come up with cloud solutions that work for a particular company – especially if there are no skilled cloud professionals in-house. Another critical point to consider is that, if any issues or downtime do occur when using a public cloud provider, will anyone be on hand to help you through the disaster recovery process, or will you be left in the dark?

Overall, it’s important to think about:

• Individual needs: What do you want to get from the cloud? What types of applications and workloads do you need to run there?
• Security and compliance: What are your requirements here?
• Skills: Logistics organisations may need to integrate their cloud infrastructure with legacy systems, which often requires custom development and integration work. It’s important to make sure this work is all done correctly by skilled cloud engineers.

How can organisations with limited IT resources leverage and manage their private cloud infrastructure effectively?

Having the right cloud support team is crucial. They play a vital role in deploying and managing cloud infrastructure that is tailored to a specific business. Cloud professionals are responsible for provisioning resources, configuring infrastructure and applications, and monitoring performance. Additionally, they are critical to identifying the root causes of problems and finding solutions before they affect performance.

Although logistics companies have very particular needs when it comes to cloud, that doesn’t necessarily mean they need to dedicate a lot of time and energy to working out how to manage it. Outsourcing cloud expertise is a common solution for logistics organisations to help them manage the complexities of a dedicated cloud environment while still having total control. This support is particularly helpful throughout migration and integration processes, which can be challenging.

Tell us about Hyve's plans for the future

Hyve's global presence gives us an advantage in guiding companies on cloud requirements and compliance when working across international borders. Increasing numbers of logistics and supply chain companies rely on our extensive experience advising on the challenges and complexities of working across different markets, such as data sovereignty and navigating the UK/US data bridge.

We are set to continue growing globally. At the same time, we are committed to remaining true to our core values and USPs, which include providing customers with tailor-made platforms designed specifically for their business needs and offering unparalleled support to every company we work with, regardless of the location.

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