Oct 11, 2018
In an interview with Precision Sourcing, Sandeep Gupta discusses the strategy to becoming a digital business. Sandeep Gupta discusses the success in modernising IT through the cloud.
Start with the cloud to become a digital business….
Why Cloud? Are you driven by market trends, buzz words or business needs?
- Do you have the choice to avoid Cloud?
- If not, here are the key considerations for success:
The Cloud is a means, not an end. Success in modernising IT through the Cloud is driven by complete standardisations and automation strategies
- STRATEGY – Align your decision with your organisation’s strategy. This will enable you to invest for the right outcomes at the right time. For example, you could avoid investment on your on-premise solutions if your wider strategy is Cloud. Why should you spend money on a solution which will be replaced by a SaaS application in the future? Therefore, you can divert your budget on innovations.
- GOALS – Make sure you have clarity and focus on the outcome you want to achieve. If the goal is to have reduced cost, faster time to value, reduced dependency on IT, business efficiency, innovation, out of the box solutions, low maintenance, flexibility, agility, ability to make fast business decisions etc. then create a value proposition matrix to ensure your decision is directly applied to revenue and profitability growth in conjunction with the customer experience.
- SUITABILITY – Cloud has various service models – such as software as a service, infrastructure as a service and platform as a service. Consider the suitability to your business application as each model has advantages and disadvantages. There is no thumb rule.
- Important Role of IT – Even in Cloud, IT has an instrumental role to play as most of your applications are technically integrated to other Cloud and on-premise solutions. They have a dependency on data and business processes. For IT infrastructures, network related support is essential for success. Therefore, no alternative except IT should be taken along on the journey, if the destination is sustainable success and building a strong collaborative relationship.
- Choice of Vendors – Did you choose a vendor who is already offering other application services to you? Or have you explored other options who have innovative offerings? Think big picture, as both have pros and cons. A non-established vendor may have the most innovative offerings but may lack on scalability, availability, robustness and support. A large vendor can offer the above but may lack on innovation. Think about the risk profile of applications for business getting migrated to cloud. Make a sensible strategy with consideration of incremental adoption instead of traditional big-bang approach.
- Innovation and Simplification – Think how the Cloud can serve as an open door to Machine Learning, Big Data, IoT, Analytics and other upcoming innovations.
- SUPPORTABILITY – How is support offered in the cloud subscription cost? What is the availability in a combination of integrated hybrid cloud environment? It should not become an overhead and should not dilute the key objective. Add-on support models should be carefully evaluated as they dissolve the purpose of having a cloud.
- ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN – Develop a strategy and roadmap for Cloud adoption as it should be incremental. Ensure business priorities, inter-dependency, security, infrastructure, legacy environment, data management, performance, integration, custom solution and business value is mapped. This map should have the ability to articulate measurable outcomes, milestones and value proposition. Simplification and innovation should be at the top of your priority list.
Cloud is all about business outcomes, innovations and ability for rapid change. Therefore, it is important that you go for Cloud but models BETWEEN hybrid Cloud should be chosen carefully.
We’d like to thank Sandeep Gupta for speaking with us here at Precision.
Connect with Sandeep Gupta on Linkedin
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