It’s time for you to take a serious look at the Cloud
For years IT outsourcing was the preferred model for large corporations who wanted to contain IT spend and focus on their core business. Outsourcing contracts were negotiated, new technology implemented and IT staff were moved across to the outsourcing partner through TUPE arrangements.
The main issue with Outsourcing was that it was largely limited to large organizations as the costs of migrating and running smaller scale IT operations were difficult to balance against any projected cost savings. The staggering prediction is that the SMB market alone will reach $100B by 2014. The conclusion is that market for public cloud infrastructure, platforms and applications is large and growing much more quickly than any other type of IT spending.
During the next few years there will be a rising trend for cloud delivery model consolidation. SaaS, PaaS and IaaS will dissolve into a unified stack as a service delivery model. This shift towards cloud/as-a-service offerings is perhaps not so much a result of any dissatisfaction with traditional outsourcing as it is to do with the unlimited possibilities for speed and agility that come with it
One of the key benefits of Cloud is that a client does not need to sign up for an extended period of time but can subscribe in the form of monthly, quarterly, or even annual payments. This makes it much more manageable for businesses that might not have a large sum of cash on hand. It is not cheap, but it is not as overwhelming as major IT purchases.
Beyond financial concerns, the cloud has also allowed businesses to adapt to changing work environments. Many of us today work on the road and require mobile connectivity. Some may never even see the inside of an office. One of the collateral benefits of Cloud is that it fully supports the delivery of BYOD(bring your own device) revolution as the cloud model is essentially based on global connectedness.
IT infrastructure is changing dramatically, and cloud computing is largely responsible for that change. PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a survey of 489 organizations and found that 77 percent of firms either are using or have plans to use cloud computing. Sixty-four percent said they believed the cloud would be the best way to manage IT infrastructure within three years. PwC concluded that more than a third of the IT resource base for IT Outsourcing customers would rely on cloud computing by 2014.
As the cloud continues to mature the traditional IT Outsourcers have been transforming their outsourcing services into cloud services. Tata Communications, known for its traditional outsourcing services, has invested heavily in building a cloud infrastructure in India, Singapore, and beyond. Dell Services already offers a many cloud solutions from software-as-a-service (SaaS) to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
Specialized outsourcers may continue to serve their unique customer bases, while the larger outsourcers will reinvent their service offerings to at least appear more cloud-like, if not completely adopting a cloud model.
Even those companies that prefer the in-house advantages that IT Outsourcing offered may opt for private clouds, particularly open source private cloud models, such as OpenStack and Apache CloudStack, which offer the ultimate flexibility and freedom to mold to their business needs. Those traditional IT outsourcers that manage to survive will offer more granular solutions, rather than the old monolithic deals that spanned several years and required huge investments.
A cautionary note is that Cloud is still very much in its development phase and means many things to many people. Over the next few years the terminology will start to become more consistent and the governance will mature. In the interim we strongly advise any adopters to seek out independent and expert advice to ensure that their expectations are fully understood and delivered via a comprehensive agreed contract.
We also need to highlight that many of the existing SMB focused Cloud providers are relatively small organisations and lack the stability of the larger more traditional outsourcers. This makes it particularly important to include a range of ‘what if’ scenarios in the the terms and conditions to ensure that your IT assets are fully protected along with your agreed pricing model.
However, it is still no longer a case of ‘should I move to the Cloud’ but ‘when’. There are many variations of Cloud and many providers but we strongly recommend that you attach a high priority to investigating the options, costs and evaluating a business case for a move to the Cloud
anthonykking
We’re an independent and experienced consulting, programme management and executive resourcing business. We're focused on the needs of both public and private sector clients. We work with all sizes of organisations from local start-ups through to global concerns. Without the cost overheads associated with a much larger consultancy business we have the flexibility to take on small targeted assignments, or much larger work programmes. Every client relationship is valued greatly and treated with dignity and respect. Each engagement benefits from the breadth and depth of our expertise.
