“Survey finds companies with cohesive Cloud strategies have less trouble with cost overruns and staffing shortages,” reports Joe McKendrick on ZDNet.  Despite this finding, a recent survey by Softchoice of 500 executives also found that many companies lack a cohesive cloud strategy:

• 54% reported their teams are struggling to form a cloud strategy
• 52% reported that they lack any formalized strategy

Without a cohesive strategy and with the cloud “question” entering into so many functions, your organization could have little cloud plans forming right now across  many groups. Each with different goals, risks and needs, but you may not know until it is too late.  Once in the cloud, executives who report not having a strong strategy often find they struggle with:

• Managing the cloud budget
• Choosing and managing the cloud model
• Keeping up with the cloud skills gap

Sure, pulling it all together may seem daunting, but whether you are still just talking about cloud or are currently testing cloud, take a step back now and make sure you pull the pieces together. Here are some tips to get started from Mr. McKendrick’s article:

• Now where you are now. Review your current suite of applications and systems. What are their functions, dependencies, organizational alignments and service level and security needs. Talk with business groups to understand their needs and frustrations as well with current processes
• Analyze the cloud you do have. Already in the cloud? Make sure you know what is going on within it, so you can manage service levels and most important budgets. Also, don’t forget to look into who is using it and how.  Cloud analytics tools will help you meet and forecast your budget needs as well as manage scale

Finally, don’t forget that the cloud can bring a learning curve. Invest in your employees as well as bring in outside expertise to ensure that your organization is choosing the right cloud to fit your needs.

Save

Save