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//-->8 Steps to Cloud Success :A Cloud Roadmap is the Path toBusiness Agility8 Steps to Cloud Success:A Cloud Roadmap is the Path to Business Agility1This paper was made possible by SAPAbout Sand Hill Group(http://sandhill.com) provides strategic management,investment, and marketing services to emerging market leaders. Sand HillGroup is best known for its work in the $600-billion software and servicesmarket. As founder of the “Enterprise” and “Software” conference series, SandHill Group has been credited with uniting the software business ecosystemof executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals. The firm is alsothe publisher of SandHill.com, the premier online destination for businessstrategies for the software, cloud, and mobile ecosystem. The site and itsnewsletters are read by thousands of top software industry executives as wellas CIOs and IT buyer executives. Sand Hill Group also funds primary researchinto key technology and business model trends that impact business in thesoftware, cloud, and mobile ecosystem.8 Steps to Cloud SuccessA Cloud Roadmap is the Path to Business AgilityCIOs participating in Sand Hill Group’s study (see Appendix) statedunanimously that the primary driver for moving to the cloud is to meet businessneeds. More than the dollar savings that cloud computing brings to the table, oneof the most important intangible benefit is that the cloud enables companies todo things they conceivably could not do in the pre-cloud era.As an example, a company may want to test a new idea that could be abreakthrough innovation for its business, but it requires 100 new servers toeven start the evaluation process. In the pre-cloud days, that type of expensiveconstraint could result in giving up on the idea before evaluating it. But today, inthe cloud, a company just needs a credit card to get started; and testing costs areso insignificant that they might not even need budget approval.As the cloud enables business agility, the case for cloud computing adoption iscompelling. The ability to ramp up and ramp down computing power quicklydelivers a competitive advantage and saves money that was traditionally spentbuilding overcapacity.But transitioning to the cloud involves a significant amount of business processand culture change. What are the most important steps in achieving a successfultransition? What should a company’s cloud strategy and roadmap look like?This paper explains eight steps for successfully transitioning to the cloud:1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.Adopt a progressive mindsetWatch, learn, and experimentDemonstrate quick winsDevelop a business caseUnderstand the risksAnalyze the current IT portfolioCreate a vision of the end-stateDevelop and execute the roadmap8 Steps to Cloud Success:A Cloud Roadmap is the Path to Business Agility1Step 1:Adopt a Progressive MindsetSuccess in transitioning to the cloud depends on adapting to change. Thus, thefirst step in a cloud computing strategy and roadmap is for the company—bothmanagement and employees—to adopt an open, progressive mindset regardingthe application of new technologies to gain business benefits.Transforming a company’s business using cloud solutions is not just abouttechnology adoption and implementation. It also involves broader businessand operational changes in several areas including governance, budgeting,contracting, regulatory compliance, polices, people, and processes. Thus, themove to cloud computing involves changing mindsets, cultural patterns, processpatterns, and colleagues’ hearts so that they willingly adapt to new approachesand technologies.Spearheading disruptive change in the organization will be the most difficultpart of the journey.“Use of the cloud in our industry is an exception rather than the norm. I think a lot ofcompanies in more traditional, mature industries like ours are missing out on a lot ofopportunities to take advantage of what the cloud has to offer. I would encourage thesecompanies to be open-minded and progressive and look at alternatives to traditional,client-server, on-premise systems.”– CEO, manufacturing companyMachiavelli said this about change more than 500 years ago: “There is nothingmore difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in itssuccess, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”Understanding the cloud’s power and potential is certainly important; butgetting mentally ready to take the plunge can be a stumbling block. Theunderlying reasons—perceived or real—are many:•••••Fear of the unknownFear of loss of controlFear of job lossRisk aversionLack of tolerance for changeSuccessfully transitioning to the cloud requires a company’s top managementto drive change in order to ultimately generate value for customers andshareholders. Management needs to educate and convincingly explain toeveryone in the company what the company is doing, why the new approachesbring value to the company, and who will be impacted—and how—by thechange.28 Steps to Cloud Success:A Cloud Roadmap is the Path to Business AgilityStep 2:Watch, Learn, and ExperimentEmbracing any new technology involves learning. Sand Hill’s 2010 “Leadersin the Cloud” research study (see Appendix A) found that companies typicallyconduct experiments to see how the cloud really works and how it fits or doesn’tfit into the requirements of the business. Through this process, companiesbecame familiar with constraints, issues, and benefits of the technology.Many of Sand Hill’s surveyed executives described this testing phase as similarto that of adopting outsourcing services: experiment with nonstrategic projectsto acclimate the company to a new way of doing business, evaluate selectedvendors, and assess business benefits. As their companies experienced thebenefits and understood the technology, their outsourcing initiatives maturedsuccessfully and gained a significant share of projects.Some companies also take advantage of experimenting with private clouds untilthey believe public clouds become more secure. A CIO at a Fortune 500 companyparticipating in the Sand Hill survey on transitioning to mobility (see Appendix)commented that they placed their catalogue of services (a store-like environment)in the cloud so that it would scale efficiently across all modes of access. Theirinitial experiment was in a private cloud while waiting for two years for thepublic cloud to become more reliable.Step 3:Demonstrate Quick WinsMany companies participating in the Sand Hill survey set up innovationsandboxes, referred to as Skunk Works projects, where their project teams wereallowed to work with the new cloud technology within the context of a specificbusiness initiative.Here are some examples of such small, experimental projects that companies inthe study executed in the cloud:•Initiated development projects where small teams work on specificbusiness-driven projects on a public Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)cloud such as Amazon. Examples of these projects include a short-termmarketing campaign, IT resources for offshore developers, and a newwebsite for photo sharing.•Developed a small tactical application on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)cloud such as Force.com or Windows Azure. Because the platform is soeasy to use and does not require any programming knowledge, a CIO of a8 Steps to Cloud Success:A Cloud Roadmap is the Path to Business Agility3 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]