Olokunde Olanrewaju, Marketing and Communication Team Lead at Simplex Business Solutions speaks about the evolution of cloud technology and how business and IT leaders should leverage it to scale exponentially.
The first decade of cloud computing was apparently disruptive, fundamentally changing the expectations and capabilities of what IT could provide. It was interesting to see how adopting a cloud – first business strategy was the trending thing in the year 2014 even up till 2017. Cloud computing together with mobile technology literally redefined business models, redefining what was possible and obtainable with technology and bringing to the forefront benefits like agility, scalability, innovation, cost savings, elastic consumption and payment models.
In this second decade, the cloud’s role is becoming a key vehicle for next-generation efforts, disrupting and driving new initiatives. Beyond IT, cloud is increasingly impacting business models and the way organizations operate. Revenue growth and competitiveness are now gradually being tied to the adoption and incorporation of digital business principles, which depend on the dynamic and innovative foundation established by cloud computing.
Unlike the first ten years of cloud computing when its security was characterized with rampant fear, uncertainty and vagueness, it is good to know that CIO’s and IT leaders concerns around the security of cloud has been addressed with time and use. Interestingly, the new conventional wisdom is becoming, “cloud is now more secure than on-premises.” This brings new challenges, including keeping it secure.
Forrester, recently predicted that in 2019 the cloud will reach “its more interesting young adult years, bringing innovative development services to enterprise apps rather than just serving up cheaper, temporary servers and storage.”
The exciting thing also is that cloud computing, in its second decade, is enabling many disruptions caused by digital business, AI, IoT and other next-generation trends. Most new digital platforms are now cloud-based. It is therefore important that IT leaders prepare an all-encompassing cloud strategy for their organizations.
Any organization or IT leaders that want to lead and thrive with technology must of a necessity craft a cloud strategy without seeking a singular path to cloud success. However, in successful cloud deployments, multiple paths to success and cloud strategies must be identified.
Gartner recommends that IT leaders must develop a decision framework to systematically examine use-case scenarios for adopting cloud computing. Such a framework forms the backbone of any successful cloud strategy.
The decision framework starts with an understanding of the type of application and its technical characteristics, the needs and constraints of the associated data, and the integration of the application and data with other systems.
Finally, by 2021, more than half of global enterprises already using cloud today will adopt an all-in cloud strategy. Now that cloud has become “the new normal” for the way enterprises are operating, CIOs and other IT leaders need to constantly adapt their strategies to leverage cloud capabilities. DON’T BE LEFT OUT!!!
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Olokunde Olanrewaju leads the Business Development Team at Simplex and works exclusively with C-Level executives of high-growth and strategic financial services providers in Nigeria and Africa with an ambition to grow their business with technology.