Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) understand that digital can either be an opportunity or a threat. So, the essential key to unlocking its opportunities is to find a balance between maintaining a healthy business and current infrastructure and innovating without disruption.
The mandate from business to Information Technology (IT) has shifted. For decades, a CIO’s chief responsibility was to reduce costs and keep the lights on just enough to run mission-critical processes. Now, CIOs and IT departments are tasked with driving business innovation. To stay competitive in a digital economy, it is no longer sufficient to have a system landscape whose primary role is to keep records.
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Most organisations invest a great deal to maintain and customise their IT landscapes to meet their unique business needs. Today, nearly every organisation has some level of cloud presence, typically for customer relationship management (CRM), human capital management (HCM), or procurement. The question we hear most often from customers is not how to make their first foray into the cloud, but rather how to design a comprehensive enterprise cloud strategy that; protects existing investments, accelerates innovation and keeps an organisation’s unique business processes intact.
Moving to the cloud does not mean breaking off some parts of the business in a piecemeal fashion or taking a rip-and-replace approach. Cloud is one of the key drivers of digital transformation. Cloud has disrupted the traditional IT model by drastically reducing time to market and TCO for innovative solutions. With its ease of use and ubiquitous access, the cloud has democratised the decisions about software purchasing, access, and usage.
Cloud computing offers immense opportunity for companies to improve their business operations, regardless of sector. Modern cloud offerings reduce IT infrastructure complexity and free up resources that can be better applied to driving innovation. And with security topping the list of concerns among business and IT leaders, cloud providers today invest talent and energy into ensuring their offerings can meet even the most stringent security requirements.
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According to the IDC, cloud spending is expected to surge by 25 percent to reach more than $100 billion, with cloud data centers expected to double in number. In a separate study, analysts found that an astonishing $237 billion in profits were lost by the top 200 global companies alone, mainly due to the hidden costs of complexity. Despite these clear signs, cloud migration of key business applications is still met with reservations and, often, resistance. IT leaders list concerns such as possible downtime, security, potential loss of control over key business processes, and cost.
According to SAP, software solution providers; “running business applications in the cloud means less maintenance, especially in comparison to on-premise solutions, as many subscription models include company-specific maintenance and support in addition to hosting. Investments to replace outdated hardware are also no longer necessary, as these are already included in the monthly fees and service agreements.”
JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWRENSON
