Are you ready for the cloud?

January 29, 2019

A blog post by David Linthicum, managing director, chief cloud strategy officer, Deloitte Consulting LLP

I’m always asked about enterprises’ cloud readiness and where they are in the cycle, in terms of processes, technologies, and talent they have in place to best-leverage public cloud technology. The reality is that there is really no definitive answer. Some enterprises that are successful with cloud computing came from way behind, technologically. Some enterprises that are very state-of-the-art fail due to different reasons. So, how can an enterprise increase its chances of success?

Chances are, cloud computing is already part of your infrastructure, either SaaS or IaaS, at the very least. So, most enterprises have some experience in the cloud. What we’re really asking here is how can an enterprise hit the accelerator and move from step 1 to step 10 in a few short years? For that answer, you’ll need to do some prep to find a winning strategy.

So, what’s involved in that prep work?

Talent. Goes without saying, right? Surprisingly, many enterprises don’t consider the skills required for the addition of cloud computing, and who might be around to supply those skills.

What most enterprises need to do is a skills gap assessment. This means figuring out what technology you are most likely to be leveraging, and what the current skills are now. Then, understanding the differences, and define what needs to be done to close the gap. It will involve hiring, leveraging consultants, or training. Staff changes could be very minor, or they could be major, depending upon the cloud aspirations of the company.

Culture. The culture of an enterprise, especially IT, can be the single most important factor to successful cloud computing. This means having a culture that thrives on innovation and change, and not a culture that pushes back on anything new that comes down the road.

I call this the chicken littles of IT the folded arm gang. They view the cloud as something that’s trendy with high risks. They used to be right, but that was back in 2006. Today the cloud is mainstream.

Tech. While many people would put this first, that should never be the case. You need some foundational technology in place to facilitate the transition to the cloud. This includes security, operations, monitoring, configuration management, etc.

This does not mean that we won’t be changing or augmenting this existing technology, but that we need to have a foundational understanding of this technology to make cloud computing successful.

While the above three concepts are not the only things to consider, these are the primary concepts to forge a path to cloud achieving the expected results. Which issues will you solve to achieve cloud success?