Developing a cloud strategy is an imperative for every business in every industry. A cloud strategy is not just a necessity for technology companies or just the domain of your internal IT team, but it’s a recognition by your business that the cloud will have an impact on your industry and your executive team needs to understand and articulate this impact.
The cloud can fundamentally change your interactions with clients, it can change how data flows and is aggregated within your industry and it can significantly impact the efficiencies of your operation. To build your cloud strategy you should assess the impact of the cloud on your business across five dimensions:
- Customer and Partner Connections – the cloud enables the creation of new “network” of interactions with your clients and partners. Have you assessed how you can change the electronic interactions and facilitate new more leveraged connectivity with your customers and partners?
- Big Data and Analytics – Are there opportunities to create new data assets to augment or expand your business? Can new data analytics be derived as a by-product of your interactions with clients? Are there new data services available in your industry that you should look to leverage? For example, in the technology industry we’ve worked with companies to develop new industry analytics to determine market share at the distributor and reseller level, data never available prior to the cloud.
- Social Collaboration – salesforce.com has pioneered the “social enterprise”, leveraging social networking technologies to achieve closer intimacy with your partners and customers, going beyond consumer uses of social networking. In the software industry the cloud has led to the democratization of software by which the end-users of software have the voice and power in making software decisions, not just centralized IT organizations. How will this ability to democratize decision-making at a user and consumer level impact your industry?
- Mobility – in the cloud you can offer highly robust applications on mobile platforms since you can disconnect the data from the mobile device. The user experience is now “App” centric and you can create new user experiences that combine mobile apps seamlessly with data that’s in the cloud (think Dropbox but beyond).
- Operational Efficiencies – Companies have been achieving significant (50%+ according to some analyst reports) operational cost savings by moving front-office applications to the cloud. Has your IT organization mapped out a multi-year roadmap of the applications you move to the cloud and the savings that you can achieve?
Has your executive team established a cloud strategy? Are you anticipating the ways the cloud will impact your company and industry? Are there other dimensions that you are considering beyond the five described above?
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