What IT leaders want: a guide to finding cloud success

For the whole of December, it’s almost impossible to open a paper or a magazine without finding a section that aims to suggest the perfect gift for everyone. But the festive season has passed and with the New Year underway, IT leaders are back to defining what they want from cloud.

Business leaders, particularly those in IT, want to optimize their business through both the cloud and innovation. This is no easy task. There is no set path or easy journey to the cloud, no overnight migration success stories of how a company migrated their business at the click of a mouse. It’s a tough journey.

Viewpoints vary. In IT, the developers look to the (vast) opportunities inherent in cloud platforms such as those offered by AWS, Google, or Microsoft; they’re keen to write code and exploit the capabilities of Platform-as a-Service (PaaS). In the other corner are the C-suite executives who are equally keen to let the developers innovate, but remain leery of the costs and risks brought about by a lack of understanding and opaqueness.

The control key

Whichever corner they stand in, the number-one want for all IT leaders is control. This is particularly true and pertinent for the C-suite executives, who carry the twin burdens of responsibility and accountability.

For C-suite executives, control means being able to ensure that the costs stay manageable and realistic, and also being aware of how the business’s data is built and used. Only once these parameters and boundaries are set can the developers be given the freedom to play their part in boosting innovation.

Agility and cost management

While control is the most obvious and important desire for IT leaders, it’s not the only thing on their wish lists. Business agility is vital, and IT leaders recognize the importance of having in place service level agreements and operational level agreements (SLAs and OLAs) to match the solutions to the business. With these safety nets in place, a business is better placed to conduct more proofs of concept (POCs) in a fail-fast approach and to respond to changing market conditions – to adapt, scale, and contract solutions based on business needs.

One of the aspects driving a desire for control is the management of the associated costs of innovation. Making the shift from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operating expenditure (OPEX) is a proven way to reduce operation costs. Operations can be sized to meet actual demands, and resources can be shut down when not in use.

Reliability, privacy, and speed to value

Like anyone else, IT leaders crave peace of mind and a degree of privacy.

In their business environment, that can come from having solutions in place that are reliable and secure. Having a highly available, resilient, and redundant infrastructure is high on the want list, as is a secure, virtual, private cloud. Best-in-class protection and security brings further reassurance as does encrypted data – both at rest and in transit – along with 24/7/365 operations monitoring and management.

And of course, IT leaders want to see speed to value from their enterprise. This can consist of any or all of a catalog of ready-to-go blueprints, dramatically reduced procurement lead times and resource bottlenecks, and the ability to rapidly deliver project services and automate and orchestrate provisioning tasks

More than IT, more than the cloud

The wants of IT leaders aren’t siloed – they’re looking for solutions that extend outside of their realm to the business as a whole. The Capgemini Cloud Platform (CCP) solves these problems for customers. We understand that it’s not enough to focus on IT alone; it’s vital that the whole business can access your platform.

A common complaint that IT leaders have with managed services providers is that they lump them in with the cloud. Capgemini doesn’t take that approach; we’re with you all the way. As well as providing an immensely consultative experience, CCP ensures that cloud services become part of your day-to-day business by making sure that there is deep integration with existing services, as well as integration into your ITSM platform.

Your success is our success

All of the wants of IT leaders can be pulled together into a single word –  success. And that’s exactly what we want too. We’re not interested in selling you any particular cloud. What we want is to be able to tell you which is best for which services or functions. We want you to exploit the cloud for your benefit.

Importantly, we recognize that small changes can have a big impact. One small step for IT can translate to one giant leap for business growth. By continuously assessing what you’re doing, we can offer advice along the way – big and small. If we spot something that can unlock an efficiency or bring about a quick win, you’ll be the first to know.

In these ways, Capgemini is committed to developing a strategically sensible route to innovation. Innovation only matters if it’ll mean big wins for your business – and that’s something that everybody wants, except your competition.

For more information, download the Capgemini Cloud Platform brochure
https://www.capgemini.com/resources/capgemini-cloud-platform-brochure/