Technology is not only improving people’s lives but is also making work easier in many sectors. On top of that, we have all witnessed how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation. Launching technology-driven initiatives to enable remote work and distance learning, online shopping and more. For most organizations, this shift was not possible without cloud technology.
Cloud is here to stay, and to stay ahead of competition and on top of customer demands, more organizations need to shift to cloud computing. But the only way to truly succeed with cloud, is by embracing it fully across your entire organization. And this is more then just technology. This also means that people and processes need to align to the strategy as well.
In the next sections, we are going to look at some important aspects that make up a successful cloud strategy.
Preparing and training IT staff for the cloud
The first important step is to prepare ant train your IT staff. They need to function as change agents for supporting and emerging cloud technologies. The staff needs to have a clear understanding of both their roles and any changes to their current position, and the business case behind it, and they need time and resources to explore the new cloud technologies. This team will need to lead the adoption of cloud services and help the organization understand and embrace all necessary changes.
Establish a Cloud Center of Excellence
Every business nowadays needs to drive digital transformation to stay ahead of competition. This requires constantly evolving software to keep up with competitors. Therefore, Agile development and DevOps practices need to be in place. DevOps needs immediate availability of infrastructure in place for deployment. And therefore, PaaS and containers are well suited. This makes it very important to the cloud strategy that continuous delivery is well implemented. And one way to establish this is by implementing a Cloud Center of Excellence, which is a control centre which the IT department can implement, supervise and manage its cloud projects operationally. It is responsible for implementing and managing security, compliance, performance, and cost control in a (fully) automatic way.
Cloud enabled applications
To fully opt-in for cloud, prioritize cloud migrations for applications that are heavily used in your organization. This will not result in cost-reduction in the beginning, however in the long end it will be cost effective. It enables flexibility and scalability for apps with variable usage. It also enables frequent deployments for these applications. Customer feedback and changes can be incorporated at a rapid pace, which will lead to higher agility and customer satisfaction. For all new applications, a cloud first strategy should be the approach.
Establish a cloud culture
This last topic is in my opinion the most important one in being successful in cloud. And unfortunately, this is overlooked at many organizations. Not only the IT staff needs to be trained and shifted to a cloud centric approach. When you do a cloud transformation, is most cases it is technology that is the biggest challenge. It is the people and the culture. And this goes beyond your IT staff and the professionals that run the Cloud Center of Excellence. The whole leadership must be in and support and drive these changes in the organization. You need some champions that advocate the new way of working, but also recruit new passionate and skilled people. Continuously measuring progress and outcomes must be a top priority. And don’t be afraid to fail and change the approach if needed. Changing the way people think and work, is the most challenging part of cloud adoption.