Will you be ready for the cloud when the time comes to make the move?
From your perspective as CIO, things inside of IT have been going well for the past couple years at your mid-size company. Outages are minimal compared to when you joined the company, the business has not complained about system capability for some time, and annual budgets have been approved without much pushback from the CFO.
No reason to change a thing. All is good. Or is it?
It turns out the CEO has been looking for ways to move the business forward in a more efficient manner while maintaining or even reducing costs. At a recent industry tradeshow, the CEO attended a couple of seminars and stopped by a few vendor booths representing SaaS solutions pertinent to the company’s operations. Since returning, the CEO has been reading about the capabilities and benefits of AWS and Azure solutions.
You can guess what happens next. During the next annual budgeting cycle, you are blindsided and told that “everything” must be moved to the cloud in the next 12 months.
While you instinctively know this will be extremely difficult and that an “all-in” cloud approach is likely not the right answer, you have not proactively positioned yourself to explain the realities of cloud computing within the context of your company’s current reality/situation. Suddenly, you realize all was not good and the CEO took the lead on something you should have been out in front of. Now, your back is against the wall and you only have yourself to blame. This scenario plays out time and time again.
Here’s how you can avoid it:
As the IT leader for your company, you need to be proactive in understanding:
- The various cloud opportunities (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, etc.) available to your organization
- How your current IT capabilities would fit into and/or interact with cloud solutions when they are introduced into your environment
- The road map and level of effort required to move towards a cloud strategy when the time comes
Don’t wait. Begin to establish a cloud computing strategy today. Answerport professionals can help you with everything from Cloud Strategy to implementation. Please let us know how we could help at info@answerport.com or call us at 414.289.9100.
Whether you have successfully developed a cloud strategy or are struggling with developing a cloud strategy, I’d like to hear about your experiences by emailing me at: bryan.dworak@answerport.com.
About the author: Bryan Dworak advises clients on IT infrastructure and operations planning and strategy. Prior to joining Answerport, Bryan served as an IT executive and infrastructure leader for multiple regional and national healthcare providers.