Is your company looking at completely new Cloud-based technology options for both corporate strategy reasons and more efficient IT services? A new way to both better deliver services to your clients and access all of your required IT facilities?

Major Focus

The major focus of your ‘In-The-Cloud’ business plan should be on delivering your corporate strategy; meeting your corporate objectives. If you are instead focusing only on operating your corporate IT servers at a lower cost then you have completely missed the point.

Any migration to the cloud should be based on improving availability, security and durability of services, as well as delivering the ability to benefit from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to improve your business opportunities and efficiencies.

Funding the Move

If your modelling is accurate and your plan realistic, other examples tell us that you should be able recoup the cost of your cloud migration project based on capex savings over a two to three-year period. The main cost reductions being in the areas of operating system and database upgrades, server and storage upgrades and a reduction in the manpower required to operate and maintain your IT facilities.

When trying to convince your board of the wisdom of a move to the Cloud the only way you will convince them is to demonstrate that the move you are proposing will fast-track their corporate strategy as well as reduce capex. The end point should be business growth and profitability growth.

Opposition

Your main opposition is likely to come from your IT Department. You will be told that they are too busy, that they don’t have the time or the resources or the expertise. That they have too much ‘other’ work to do.

This is where you really need to take a good long hard look at the work they are doing and decide just how important and necessary it is. Make some hard decisions; if the work isn’t really necessary and important drop it. Most of the work you drop will be related to running and managing the current IT environment and a lot of it will become redundant once you move to the Cloud. The Cloud requires a totally new, smarter and leaner model.

Conclusion

The Cloud shouldn’t just be about reducing your IT operating expenses. It should be about giving your company the opportunity to adapt, change and grow. Of course, you will benefit from more flexible IT facilities but this should be seen as an engine of growth, a facilitator of growth, not the end result.

Demonstrate to your board how the move to the Cloud will allow your company to become a disrupter, to expand into new markets, to grow revenues as well as reduce costs. It is the whole business paradigm you need to change, not just the way your IT department is run.