Google Cloud: An oasis of possibilities, says AirAsia and Digi

THERE is a lot that you can do on the cloud these days – from hosting applications to interpreting and analyzing data in real time. It’s a technology that’s widely adopted and is still nowhere near maturity.

According to Google Cloud’s Asia Head of Cloud Engineering Anish Malhotra at the Google Cloud OnBoard event today, although cloud and cloud-related technologies became popular in the early 2000s, it’s still constantly evolving. With it are the possibilities for clients and customers using the cloud platform.

Some of Google’s clients such as AirAsia and Digi Telecommunications who attended the event, vouch for the opportunities that cloud technology makes possible.

According to AirAsia’s Head of Data Scientist Alauddin Md, the company started exploring cloud technology a couple of years ago as product managers were often let down by weak infrastructure despite having brilliant ideas. Once cloud adoption was complete, it became easier to test ideas and separate the wheat from the chaff.

AirAsia also admitted that moving to the cloud has also helped it take long strides towards improving the customer experience by providing quicker and more personalized services.

The company discussed its personalization strategy a bit further and explained that the idea was to boost conversions by shortening the booking funnel.

Being a low-cost airline, AirAsia also uses machine learning capabilities on the cloud to help suggest ancillary products to customers that they’d be interested in. In fact, it’s what helps the airline make recommendations about hotels and cars that they “could also book”.

However, as Malhotra points out, innovation never stops. Although AirAsia has achieved quite a bit so far, the company is aiming high. Alauddin reveals that the company hopes to build the next generation of travel apps and use data to create the best experience possible for every user out there.

The story about opportunities and the potential of cloud technology is something that resonates with Digi as well. Digi’s Head of Digital Exploration & Design Deb Tan, who is responsible for the company’s chatbots, says

“The chatbot is one of Digi’s customer digital care tools that has contributed to 40 percent reduction of its call center traffic.”

“Some of the other digital tools used include MyDigi app, and kiosk & EQMS for retail stores,” Tan said.

Doing so has not only reduced costs but also made call center executives more efficient. They’re now able to focus on providing a stellar experience to remaining customers – who have a problem that frequently asked questions (FAQs), automated solutions, and chatbots cannot solve.

Before embarking on the project, Tan’s team interviewed customers about what they really wanted and how a chatbot could help them – and they found that the algorithm must be trained to be friendly and informative at the same time.

Striking the balance was complicated – however, for Digi, the fact that their internal team “taught themselves” how to train the chatbot on Google’s cloud AI was very helpful. Their existing understanding of the client made a great difference.

At the event, Malhotra said that Google’s focus is on proactively training partners and customers so that they can leverage cutting-edge technologies to create the best products. After all, even Go-Jek was a startup when it turned to Google’s cloud platform to build its product and grow!

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