Blogs

Various reports from renowned consultancy companies, such as McKinsey, have been released over the past few months stating that adoption of Cloud is rising and will accelerate over the next three years. On the other hand, Microsoft’s stock has reached record highs and the company has singled out cloud as the growth driver.

Cloud adoption is inexorable. IT folks have a chance to do it today on their own terms. They can evaluate the infrastructure that is in place today, project growth and consumption over the next few months, and make a plan to adopt cloud where it makes sense in a gradual manner.

If they don’t do it today, in the near future cloud adoption will be mandated by the management of organizations- no questions asked. In fact, we have just heard this today. Someone told us that their management was asking “why are we not in the cloud?”

The big risk here? CFOs and CEOs probably have very little understanding of what cloud is, but they hear every day that cloud is the way to go for the most varied business benefits. A poorly planned adoption may kill all of the known business benefits of cloud adoption.

Does that mean that corporate IT will be over? Will there be mass unemployment for IT professionals? Maybe. It depends on the attitude of the IT folks facing the challenge. If they try to hide and expect that the wave will pass, I believe it is very likely they will be doomed. There is not a lot of value in maintaining servers up and running 100% of the time. Have you ever been congratulated for 100% of uptime in your organization? What happens if there is a failure of 30 minutes?

The value of IT is very clear when there is an alignment with the business. But… what does that reaaaally mean? IT and business alignment? It is actually quite simple. Here’s our understanding: IT must focus on generating SUSTAINABLE competitive advantages, not on maintaining servers up and running, backed up on a daily basis, updating operating systems etc., none of this adds true business value.

Business people do not know about IT. They do not know what can be done with IT. IT people do understand the technology and various possibilities. If IT sits and waits for the business to show up and ask for initiatives, nothing is going to happen because the business doesn’t even know what to ask for.

IT has to have the initiative to propose how to utilize technology in order to create new distribution channels, develop new products, generate new marketing campaigns and initiatives, improve and expedite financial reporting, etc. This is how IT aligns itself with the Business. This is how IT is generating value for the organization. This is how IT is helping create sustainable competitive advantage. The keyword here being sustainable.

Now, one thing to call the attention is, who are you going to work with? Search for a partner with local presence. That can truly support your initiatives and your growth. That can help you migrate and integrate the most diverse IT environment you may have today.

Search for a partner that does not treat you like an account on a website, but that will enable you to be successful in transforming your organization into the 21^st century.