You've decided to move aggressively to the cloud. What's the most effective way to successfully make that transition?
An important shift is occurring in the enterprise world: the transition to the cloud along with its evolving array of stack services that organizations will increasingly utilize but not own. For businesses that want to be relevant 20 (or more) years from now, this Digital Transformation is essential.
Why Digital Transformation Is More Important Than Ever
Today, organizations are looking at how technology, such as containers, machine learning (ML), and multicloud environments, play into their corporate strategy. They also are looking to retain some level of control over their own resource allocations. What this means for 99 percent of us is letting go of our on-premises application and data infrastructure and moving to a more cloud-centric set of services. Digital transformation in the 21st century begins with acknowledging the shift that has taken place: moving Business ecosystems to the cloud and managed services.
The scalable capabilities available today allow brilliant products and services to be built at a fraction of the cost (over time), helping organizations reimagine the future of everything from government to medicine, education, transportation, and beyond. It also frees businesses to boost their competitiveness as they reallocate resources to more productive, strategic, and customer-centric activities.
The question is no longer: "Should we move our Business-critical computing resources and core apps to the cloud?" The question is: "We've decided to move aggressively to the cloud, so what's the most effective way to successfully make that transition?"
To ensure the success of your digital transformation (DTX) initiative, consider the following four steps.
According to the Harvard Business Review, only 22 percent of 445 executives deemed their current digital transformation approaches "very effective." To ensure your project doesn't end up underperforming, you need to lay the foundation for a successful DTX initiative.
To begin, be sure to identify executive stakeholder interest and ownership. It is important to have someone with sufficient standing in the organization leading the charge with the authority to speak across the different silos of the organization and connect them.
It is also a good idea to ensure that DTX team members include individuals who have been asking for change, have experienced the challenges of current processes, and believe there are opportunities for improvement.
Although cloud services have commoditized the virtual data center, you must commit to an all-in strategic planning process that asks why moving everything to the cloud can do to transform how you do business.
Any organization building and owning its own data centers without a strategic plan to do away with that burden will hamper its success. It comes down to questioning how you can best serve your customers. Competing in a world where hosting services are becoming commoditized requires doubling down on innovations that are dependent on your own subject-matter expertise.
