Tell us if this sounds like your organization:
- You’ve implemented a cloud strategy that enables your business to become more agile and cost-efficient.
- You’ve hired the right consultants to ensure that your transition is smooth.
- Employees now have more collaboration opportunities than ever with the ability to work on the road or at home without disrupting productivity.
But despite these wins…
- Shadow IT continues to plague the organization.
- Many employees are still reluctant to get on the cloud.
- Executive leadership is still lukewarm on the benefits of cloud.
There’s no doubt that you’re stuck in a frustrating situation. After all, while you understand that digital transformation is a critical need for business survival, your peers may not necessarily share that sentiment. As you’ve gotten this far, looking back is also not an option either: The question is now where to go, rather than stay the course.
As changes in the business world accelerate, so do the strategies that govern them. If you’re experiencing any of the following issues above or are wondering how to take back control of your cloud strategy, check out our five tips for today:
Tip #1: Govern Your Shadow IT
IT is no longer confined to one department but has made its impact around the entire business, including marketing. Research firm Gartner even predicts that by 2017, CMOs alone will spend more on IT services than CIOs, shifting how many organizations allocate their budget. With this change in budget organizations will also see the rise in shadow IT, or the usage of applications and technologies without the knowledge of IT departments. Not only does this open up organizations to security breaches, it also reduces overall organizational visibility. Some tips may include:
- Working across departments to ensure you have a handle on all active applications.
- Create best practices around the adoption and implementation of new technologies.
- Audit existing technologies to ensure that they still serve adequate business use.
Tip #2: Communicate Innovation
So much happens in a business on any given day and there is so much for IT to keep track of. Most IT departments only keep track of 40-50 applications, while research firm Blue Coat discovered that the number is actually closer to 840. Some tips on closing the gap on this knowledge may include:
- Surveying employees to understand what technologies they are using day-to-day.
- Communicating available technologies to the organization and providing training or a centralized hub for discovery.
- Adopt a cloud security solution that audits and reports the usage of applications.
Tip #3: Re-Assess Cloud Governance
While creating your initial plan, you may have overlooked key leadership needs. Taking back control of your cloud plan includes re-assessing how you plan to govern your new systems. This includes getting together with executives, IT, legal, compliance/risk, and business representatives to make sure everyone is on the same page. Close the gap by:
- Developing a playbook that everyone can reference if they have questions.
- Developing a communications plan that not only mentions the cloud but re-iterates it over time.
- Creating training programs across the organization that get everyone up to speed.
Tip #4: Consolidation
In larger organizations, some employees may be using multiple applications to do the same task. Eliminate redundancy by unifying all the applications you use into one, allowing for reduced costs and complexity. Other tasks can include:
- Creating a centralized process for how applications are acquired.
- Update the organization’s cloud security policy to reflect how applications are used.
Tip #5: Provide Regular Executive Reporting
The final path to sustaining a cloud strategy is to report to executives and create transparency in the adoption process. Reporting can include everything from technology choice to overall adoption. Having an understanding of visibility on the ground that can be shared with executives is encouraging for implementing digital transformation.
Closing Thoughts
How is your organization moving into the cloud? With our Innovation Lab, organizations can ask all the right questions to develop the most appropriate strategies for their business needs. Get in touch with us today at sales@perficient.com and download our hybrid cloud guide to learn more.
Learn more about our cloud practices here.
