Digitellisense

How did it all start?

It has been more than a decade or two since corporations started experimenting with seemingly novel platforms such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and many other evolving “as a Service” technologies. And the verdict is long in on their business value. It’s now evident that companies who adopt these evolving technologies bring new capabilities to market more quickly, accelerate innovation easily, and scale efficiently without a hitch. All by reducing technology risk and technical debt in the long run.

Alas, the verdict is yet out on what constitutes a successful cloud implementation to actually capture business value. The majority of CIOs and CTOs resort to traditional implementation models that may have been successful in the past but that makes it almost impossible to capture the bona fide value from the cloud. Defining the cloud opportunity too narrowly with siloed business initiatives, such as next-generation application hosting or data platforms, almost ensures letdown. That’s mainly because no design consideration is given to how the organization will need to operate holistically in the cloud. This increases the risk of disruption from nimble attackers with modern technology platforms that enable business agility and innovation.

In order to reap the real business value from emerging “as a Service” models, companies should focus on digital business transformation adoption along with the following priorities:

• Refocusing investments on business domains where cloud can enable increased revenues and improved margins.
• Implementing a cloud-enabled technology and sourcing model that aligns with business strategy, governance, and risk constraints.
• Developing and implementing a business standard operating model that is more oriented around cloud technology.

Evidently, business leaders need to drive cloud adoption, but, given the extent and scope of change management required to utilize this opportunity organization-wide, they also need management support.

The challenges we face

Emerging technologies are also faced with emerging challenges. We’ve all experienced, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how we live and work. From communities, organizations, to corporations. This pushed citizens to progressively use digital technologies in their daily lives thereby requiring government agencies to expedite a digital transformation in order to meet everyone’s needs.

Organizations face distinct challenges when it comes to acquiring, implementing, and using digital tools and technologies. But for most, challenges are relatively similar across the board.

• Pilot stall: Organizations have succeeded in implementing a few greenfield applications on cloud platforms, but the value derived from these programs has been limited.
• Cloud gridlock: Cloud initiatives become jammed up in long queues because IT cannot build out the automation or reference architectures required to use cloud platform services in a secure, resilient, and compliant way.
• No value from “lift and shift”: The migration of significant portions of the technology environment – largely by replacing on-premises implementations with off-premises ones without taking advantage of cloud-optimization levers—has failed to significantly reduce costs or increase flexibility.
• Cloud chaos: Tech leadership does not have an aligned vision and does not provide the required guidance or management oversight, leaving developers largely to their own devices in configuring cloud services. This leads to very divergent approaches and tooling with significant security, resiliency, and compliance risks.

Our next best action

COVID-19 pandemic intensified the need for companies to adopt into cloud technologies. Evidently, cloud platforms provided the required agility, scalability, and innovative capabilities for the new normal. While there have been setbacks, companies showed dramatic progress by focusing on cloud investments where they provide the most business value and building cloud-ready operating models.

So just how can CIOs and IT executives begin to tackle digital transformation and the mass migration to cloud services? We recommend these three important steps:

• Start small. It’s never too late to get started with digital transformation or to accelerate current efforts. Pick a pilot project and start experimenting.
• Improve processes. Another important step for embarking on digital transformation is examining current operations and processes and looking for ways to improve them. Identify any gaps, performance issues, cycle times, and results that are not meeting expectations, and look at opportunities for improvements.
• Collaborate. Share information and best practices on what is working and what isn’t organizationally.