Harnessing the Power of the Cloud

The power of the cloud offers two distinct paths for organizations: They can choose to simply move part of their application and data estate to the cloud or undertake an organizational reinvention more broadly through the cloud.

The former entails a constrained outlook that views the cloud as simply one enabler of business among many, while the latter proposes embracing cloud as the primary vehicle for business reinvention.

The stark divergence between these two sets of ideologies impacts a wide range of decisions, from the executive engagement model to the intentional focus on trust and controls.

A recent report from PwC found that while 78% of leaders have adopted cloud in most or all parts of their business, only 10% are seeing the full impact from the embrace.

CIOs Critical to Cloud Execution Plan

"A cloud-empowered organization adopts the complete arch of various cloud technology factors in totality to drive and shape its business," explains Cenk Ozdemir, PwC cloud and digital lead.

From his perspective, there are multiple functions at the start of cloud transformation projects that require C-suite collaboration to be successful. "C-suite leaders are more likely to be in sync with key business functions at the earliest stages of planning, budgeting, and requirements gathering," he says.

Related:How Securing Public Clouds and Private Data Centers Differ

Beyond working together when scoping out cloud transformation projects, ongoing collaboration with finance and tax departments helps companies get a better handle on how cloud changes an organization’s financial model.

"Together, CIOs and finance leaders can try to balance the scalability on-demand resources provide with any unplanned-for costs when not done strategically," Ozdemir says.

Suresh Thirunavukkarasu, chief product officer at Nerdio, says in most enterprises, CIOs ensure cloud ROI with alignment across the C-suite and board.

"Without proper alignment and collaboration across the C-suite, CIOs will struggle to develop and maintain exemplary architecture with governance and control for all application types and users, the financial model for cloud consumption, and talent with new cloud skills," he says.

Thirunavukkarasu adds cloud adoption for new or existing applications is not the sole responsibility of CIOs.

"It is a company-wide digital transformation initiative with support and accountability from all C-suite leaders to transform the business with comprehensive cloud services and a consumption-based pricing model," he notes.

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