Recently, I was catching up with a friend who heads a large-business shared services group. The group is keenly focused on driving efficiencies and providing services that span multiple business units.
He wanted to know all about “the cloud;” what it was, what it wasn’t, how businesses are taking advantage of it and where are the risks. After our discussion he came to the conclusion that the cloud was simply another shared service. It can be leveraged by multiple groups and could be a common service that when properly deployed, can drive real efficiencies.
And guess what, he’s right! We technologists spend a lot of time and tend to over-complicate the notion of the cloud using a technospeak to describe what it is and what the benefits are. If we really consider the cloud in its simplest terms and with more of a business benefits view, it is another shared service. Business units can share, re-use and deploy all while consuming the same assets or a common approach. Efficiencies can be derived by driving the utilization of the assets to higher levels, minimizing capital expenditures, focusing resources on activity that truly add value and only consuming what is needed and when.
As more business leaders explore the options and benefits of using the cloud, we need to ensure we’re speaking a language the business can understand and in a way that highlights where the cloud can have a direct benefit to the business.
To learn more about cloud and some mistakes to avoid when implementing, check out The Ins and Outs of Cloud Migration
