CIO’s Biggest Challenges For Cloud Transformation

Cloud Transformation

I have sat across many CIOs, from small organizations to massive enterprises and the common challenge observed is that CIO’s overthink the cloud move.

Falling victim to dated skillset

If CIOs want to spearhead the transformation is a different question, but when they choose to, the biggest challenge comes from with-in. It is no other than from the people who want to stick to what they have, shows lack of realization that change is a necessity and have become comfortable with what they know. Yes, that’s the IT teams with-in the organizations.

Mostly CIOs are falling victims to their own team which either have very limited knowledge on what today’s cloud really means or they simply are reluctant to embrace the change without realizing that the change has started and probably it’s an opportunity to now upgrade their skillset and be part of the change.

The definition of cloud has evolved. Many CIOs I have talked to think that they are already on cloud because they have some application that is accessed over the internet or they share that someone in their organization is moving an application to Cloud. Well that’s not a cloud transformation, not by today’s standards. It also shows a casual and unclear approach towards probably the biggest technology transformation happening around the globe.

How to successfully move to Cloud?

Moving to cloud requires assessment at Infrastructure, Platform, Security, Applications, Access, Integrations and many other levels. Without that, moving to the cloud is nothing more than rehosting which was a cloud concept from years back. Things have changed since then!

Most of the team leaders who are eyes and ears of CIO’s have been managing system operations for some time, they possess great understanding of systems that delivers what organization needs today. For future, they mostly have theoretical knowledge of technology trends which is not enough to help CIO draft strategy or tactical plan. The result are either a vision with a dire tactical plan or nothing at all. There are many tangents to the cloud and very few organizations have the in-house skills to understand them all. What they need is help from technical experts who understand how it works.

The Key Note

What CIOs need is to lead a Cloud Transformation exercise that can deliver a Strategy that aligns with organization’s future objectives, Envision Innovation that enables Organization’s future growth and Roadmap for Technology Renovation.

“Good, bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in new technology, you are going to be left behind.”

Philip Green

By Joe Rafanelli | September 24th, 2019 | General