You have embraced the cloud- its your first baby step to enterprise digitalization. This first, baby step now creates a literal ‘domino- like’ flurry of steps and activity amongst your people and organization; there is suddenly a need for different skill sets, different relationships with vendors, different ways of deploying and provisioning services. After transitioning to the cloud, its a long journey to win it! Its a complete re-framing of the strategy and implementation roadmap. You can win in the cloud by aligning your core business with costs, people, employee productivity, control and compliance.
To win in the cloud environment, to enjoy its competitive advantage and to realize its full potential, here are Alcor’s top ten tips:
Employee happiness comes first– Your employees, their productivity, their happiness comes first while transitioning to the cloud. Be transparent with the complete cloud transitioning process and explain both, benefits and security to them at the outset. They are bound to feel insecure in the work environment with changes in processes and automation. Your endeavor is to align your staff to the organization’s strategic goals and evaluate their satisfaction and productivity quotient as you move along harnessing the cloud. Win people first!
Be a painter, create and build- You need to decide what works best for your organization. Maybe you want to put in your costs and energies in building a greater product, maybe you want to innovate, maybe you want to take the path of least resistance or maybe you want your productivity to increase multi-fold. As a master painter, you need to sync your IT department with the business goals while utilizing and realizing the full potential of the cloud.
Think of it as a ‘Jig-saw’ to fix- Make decisions based on a different set of parameters than those which typically drive IT. Make decisions with a cloud-first perspective, aiming to see how a certain task/s could be virtual and on the cloud. Think of it as a jig-saw puzzle to fix. There will be various combinations and experiments you need to try out but there is always a good fit for your enterprise. Tap that!
Let your business lead IT- Over 60% of IT purchases are done by the business, not by IT. Let the business lead IT. If you believe the company needs to innovate by integrating cloud with their core systems, and the Management isn’t aligned with your vision, it’s a cocktail for miscommunication and wasted resources. The consumers, the business should drive your cloud initiatives. Understand, pace and act in the cloud as the business demands. IT’s future value lies in it being a business enabler.
Orchestrate the tug-of-war between flexibility and control- You are always walking the tight-rope between flexibility and control. As apps drive businesses forward, its imperative that we lose out on control for the high flexibility payoff. Make it a win-win situation by instilling confidence and trust in your people and giving them the benefits of a digital environment.
Find a Niche within the cloud- Your organization can win in the cloud when it finds its Niche. Jack of all trades and Master of none doesn’t work in this space. You need to master your unique cloud preposition and build on it with diligence and perseverance.
Lean on cloud vendors- Leverage vendors to help with testing, implementation and training. It’s not about getting work done on your own; it’s about getting efficient work done via others. Also, the customized solutions vendors have in their suite today works in your favor. In-premises costly options can be transitioned into cheaper, efficient, durable and scalable cloud solutions via vendors.
Train and educate your people– Thought leadership and training your existing workforce on new cloud technologies, leveraging those employees’ institutional knowledge is necessary for staff transitions and cloud- friendly skills. This could be followed with ‘shadow IT’ programs where one spends a day or two learning about a specific technology. A desire to learn new skills is essential. With continuous training, you can give your employees the latest tools, helping them to innovate, provide better solutions and service to their customers.
Bring in change management initiatives early on- An important lesson for any organization that is moving to the cloud is to not underestimate the amount of change that will occur with the people, process, and technology. A savvy organization will incorporate a change management program early in the process of establishing cloud platforms to properly transition staff, customers, business processes, and traditional on premise technology to the cloud.
Highlight security, benefits of the cloud with your workforce – Cloud security policies and technology have dramatically advanced. Have a detailed security plan in place to share with your workforce. This will gain their trust on sticky issues like data access and misuse, data disclosure, identity thefts etc. Discuss the safety plugs! Early on in your cloud adoption cycle, show the benefits to your people- show how integrating on-premise and of cloud- based applications can transform benefits and deliver immense value across efficiency, costs and flexibility. Its not about delivering the technology, it’s all about how you convey its benefits.
Scalability, growth and productivity are the benefits to the organization as you harness the cloud but this will be a success when you are able to sync ideas, innovations and technology with people seamlessly.
Do you have any more tips to share? We would love to hear from you.
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Alcor Solutions Inc. is a global cloud advisory and implementation services company serving clients in multiple geographies globally. Our consultants provide advice to leading businesses on cloud platforms, architecture, enterprise service management and integrating IT service delivery. Our clients include global Fortune 500 as well as leading organizations in multiple industry verticals.
Alcor’s focus has been building strong competence on cutting edge technologies and advising clients in implementing them. We have partnered with industry leading cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) platform providers to bring cost effective, rapid implementation cloud solutions to our clients. We are passionate about our thought leadership and believe that successful IT implementations result equally from good strategy and technology excellence. We believe that balanced advice and implementation requires a multi-dimensional perspective.
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