The hype around cloud services can make it difficult to know where to start and to understand the real benefits they deliver. Determining the value of cloud computing to your organization and how to realize this value is at the heart of creating a cloud strategy. Accenture has worked with multiple clients around the world to create a cloud strategy and map the journey ahead. We can provide clarity on how you can start the process and become a cloud-enabled organization.
Many large organizations are adopting cloud computing for the cost-cutting and speed-to-market benefits. They view clouds primarily as an enabler of process improvement and a means of reducing costs in specific pockets across IT. But as IT executives remain focused on using the cloud to reduce infrastructure costs, business executives have been warming up to cloud’s potential impact across the entire business. In research conducted in late 2010 by the London School of Economics, half of the business executives surveyed said part of cloud’s appeal IT organizations that continue with this mindset is likely to lose credibility and a real opportunity to become a strategic partner to the business. Cloud, we are learning quickly, is not simply a low-cost solution for scaling IT capacity. It is a tool for driving out cost, saving time to market and transforming the business.
Cloud Strategy:
Heights Cloud Strategy aims to provide C-level answers to key questions, including:
- How do I separate the realities of the cloud from the hype?
- What are my options for adopting cloud computing?
- What steps should I take to get started in the cloud?
- The cloud seems very tactical why do I need such a broad strategy?
- How concerned should I be about privacy and regulation?
- Which of my mission critical applications are candidates for cloud?
- How does my operating model need to evolve to support a cloud strategy?
- How do I procure for the cloud?
- How does the cloud change my strategic investments, now and in the future?
Cloud Strategy Solution
What do CEO’s and CIO’s teams need to know about cloud computing and how it will change the competitive land-scape of the business? Answering this question requires a road map for integrating Cloud technologies into a broader IT and business strategy. Treating cloud as a separate initiative will only increase the complexity of addressing an aging IT infrastructure and legacy applications.
Companies need a cloud strategy that provides a pragmatic approach to harnessing the benefits of cloud in the short term while laying a path toward achieving high performance in the long term. This means addressing how you are going to adopt cloud across your entire business, whether that is done in a few years or over a multi-year span. Heights Cloud Strategy Solution helps senior leadership teams make sense of the cloud in the context of strategic, C-level decision making. Our solution addresses the business value of cloud adoption, implementation scenarios (including risks and benefits) and the technical implications of cloud along with their impact on the enterprise. Heights will help senior leadership teams develop critical cloud computing insights such as:
Cost impact
Assessment of TCO reduction in IT when adopting cloud and the impacts on liquidity and balance sheet.
Business impact
Identification of business opportunities “in the cloud” and possible disruptions during cloud adoption, calculation of real cloud-enabled time-to-market gains.
Implementation risks
Guidance of strategic decisions on location and security of data, which applications are suitable for a cloud environment, regulatory restrictions on cloud adoption, operational maturity required to operate in the cloud With these areas thoroughly examined, Heights helps IT leaders develop and implement a road map to:
1. Optimize existing IT
CIOs must develop ways to leverage IT capabilities to provide more efficient and elastic services to the business.
2. Optimize current business processes and models
Cloud services can be deployed to change the way business processes are executed and unlock constrained opportunities. In order to be successful, you must address governance, organizational model, sourcing and vendor management.
3. Create new cloud-enabled business models
The CEO and senior leadership team should view cloud as a way to explore new business models that surpass the limitations of traditional models.
