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Cloud is for life... not just for Christmas!

December 4, 2023

Many organisations make a quick leap into the cloud, often to solve an immediate problem, without thinking about the wider implications, and without a clear strategy.

In fact, many fall into a common trap that they view the cloud in the same way as say a remote data centre, but cloud adoption is much more and deeper than just a lift and shift. In fact, cloud adoption is the perfect time and opportunity for transformation; where you must define the strategy for a new way to work not just technologically, but culturally and procedurally too.

It may be daunting looking at the scale of the opportunity required to change your entire business, but remember, the change will be iterative. Plus, moving to the cloud creates a whole set of new possibilities and benefits. However, it does bring different levels of complexity and new ways of working which need to be planned for.

In fact, the key to not just adopting the cloud, but maintaining it, growing it, and transforming your business, is to thoroughly plan. It’s a cliché, but measure twice, cut once, is equally applicable for a move to the cloud!

You need to make sure you have a cloud strategy that outlines the digital transformation, and there are industry-standard frameworks that can guide your cloud adoption journey. It is important to guide your people away from traditional IT thinking, to ensure they realise business benefits and harness the true potential of the cloud, driving innovation.

And though I have banged this drum before, it is ensuring the correct governance is implemented from the outset – creating the right structures to manage, support and, if necessary, constrain how the cloud is used and developed.

To guide this process, your organisation needs a Cloud Operating Model to ease your adoption of a cloud-first mentality. Your defined operating model will also need to change as it provides the direction and aims of the organisation but now needs to include a view across people, processes, and technology.

Ultimately the Cloud Operating Model that has a cross organisational vision built from discussions with your internal stakeholders, business, and trading partners will define the foundations and principles that will ultimately deliver your business goals and values into the cloud. It will provide you with a roadmap that will help you accelerate your time to market and automate your transformation into an agile, innovative, and customer-focused organisation, which are the real step changes the cloud can deliver to your organisation.

With the right structures to manage, support, and constrain how the cloud is used and developed, will ease the long-term cloud adoption for your organisation.

In simplistic terms, it’s important to see the bigger picture that the cloud is for life, and not just for Christmas!