When the recession ends, who will be at the forefront?

When the recession ends, who will be at the forefront?

Posted: 21 April, 2025

When it comes to times of economic uncertainty, there are always two types of businesses. One, there is the business that cancels projects, reduces IT spend, and adopts a wait-and-see approach. The problem with that is that business assumes the rest of the world also adopts a wait-and-see approach, but technology doesn’t slow down. When I was a kid, I was really happy when my dad bought me a 486DX2; at the time, I thought it couldn’t get better. But really, that PC was obsolete the moment my dad bought it.

Cloud technology has pushed us further, and whilst AI may not be at the top of its game right now, it would be foolish to think it never will be. So, while the markets are crashing around us and countries adopt a position of protectionism, you might be thinking the best option for your business is to protect it too by cutting costs and trying to keep calm and carry on.

Cutting costs doesn’t mean freezing IT investments

In the past, when IT was heavily capital expenditure reliant, that made sense. Spending millions of dollars on new computers when you are making people redundant may lead to some serious head-scratching, but in the cloud world, capital expenditure is not what’s on the table.

So that leads to the second type of business — the one that invests in future-proofing the business for when the recession ends. Time marches on, 2025 is a bust, and towards Christmas, we begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Positivity shines through, and suddenly, the markets are on the mend.

During the recession, a business used that time to throw out old software and adopt a cloud-first solution. They leveraged an ecosystem of cloud services to expand their functional capabilities, reducing CAPEX costs and overall inefficiencies.

Customers now have access to a myriad of services on a forecourt, in-store, in a restaurant, or at a charger, all from one mobile phone. POS systems now connect to a single cloud platform that adds value-added services at the touch of a button. Thanks to the cloud, old hardware doesn’t need to be thrown out but rather repurposed, with asset integrity becoming a forgotten problem.

When the recession ends, who is at the forefront?

To answer that, let’s compare a legacy retail IT landscape with the Cloudics IT landscape.

Here, you can see a crude outline of a traditional site architecture. The on-premise solution is heavily reliant on hardware and the certification and security of each hardware component and offers very little in terms of out-of-the-box integration capabilities. That’s because it is coded to make the solution’s operation a site-level activity, limiting the influence cloud-operated procedures have on it.

The cost to operate, manage, maintain, and even install such a solution is prohibitively high, leading many retailers to extend the lifespan of said solution or even question investments.

How is Cloudics different?

Cloudics software sits remotely on a cloud infrastructure of your choice. From the POS to the mobile application, even the forecourt controller, all act as remote services, accessible from any device, anywhere. This means that not only is it easier to gain access to an ecosystem of add-on services, but it also means you can extend the lifespan of your hardware, worrying less about asset integrity, because the security of your solution sits at a cloud level.

Suddenly, hardware costs are eliminated, service and maintenance are centralised, and your solution is ready for whatever comes next.

How? That is the power of the Ecosystem.

Start-ups and small technology businesses have been creating really cool new features, from the integration of smart fridge technology for groceries to more advanced kitchen management solutions to robotic automation of certain manual tasks. But if you are a small to medium-sized business yourself or just operate your corporation in a single region, access to these new features may be difficult.

Not if you have a centralised solution like Cloudics.

Not only is the Cloudics Platform already in use for all the profit areas of the site, but the Ecosystem opens up APIs for third parties to connect to. Consider what happens if your car runs low on windscreen washer fluid.

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself driving with an empty bottle because I forget to buy a replacement. What if the car did it for you via an API, and it was ready for you to pick up in a locker?

The power of the Ecosystem is about leveraging the power of interconnectivity of services, simplifying payments, and giving your customers the chance to eliminate the unnecessary stresses of day-to-day life.

An on-premise solution cannot offer this. Sure, there are companies out there claiming to have such a service via an add-on to their POS, but at the end of the day, they will always be limited by the capabilities of the site-level solution, which means you, as a retailer, need to go back and say, “Can we support this feature we found in Mexico?” to which you will hear, “That requires a system change to the core, and will be a one-year change request.”

In summary, in these uncertain times, here is how Cloudics makes things easier:

– SaaS-based centralised solution for all services.

– Reduces need for CAPEX investment.

– Reduces service and maintenance costs through centralisation.

– Introduces new ways to drive revenue and profits from each profit area of the site.

– Monetises loss-making parts of the business (for example, EV charging).

– It makes moving towards a convenience energy hub concept easier, without adding cost.

– Makes it easier to ready your business for coming out of the recession.

Today, we are the only company that can do this across all parts of the business. Talk to us today about how we can help you make all this happen, at minimal cost and with minimal fuss.

Learn more about Cloudics here.

Cloudics
Future of Energy Stations