The cloud is now the foundation for competitive differentiation. It offers speed, scalability, resilience and capital cost management, unmatched by on-premises options. About 40% of enterprises in North America spend most of their new funding on the cloud. But successful cloud deployment requires a sound strategy synced with business objectives.

These five key considerations will help you roll out an effective cloud strategy.

1. Adopt a Cloud-First Approach

Enterprises ponder a cloud-first strategy, a big leap from adapting to the cloud a few years ago.  

“Cloud-first” means identifying and migrating tasks best suited for the cloud. The cloud becomes the primary choice, prioritized and promoted over conventional on-premises deployments.

But “cloud-first” doesn’t mean “cloud-only.” Some businesses gain value by moving all or most of their applications out of data centres to the cloud. Others may achieve better control by keeping sensitive and critical tasks on-premises.

Assess the value of moving selected services to the cloud. Consider potential cost savings, improved operational efficiency, improved agility, and staff resourcing. Consider the efficiency of the incumbent current data centre. Test the readiness of the enterprise to cope with the inevitable change. Evaluate the opportunity cost of migration. See if competitors will gain strategic advantage by offering better cloud-based products.

Keep the implementation on hold if it does not make financial, operational or tactical sense to migrate. As the adage goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Future-proofing the application is a convincing reason to migrate if no other reason exists. But in an age of shifting technologies, commit to the new technology closer to the actual need.

2. Constitute a “cloud centre of excellence”

A top-down approach to cloud rarely works. Successful cloud implementations need buy-in from across-the-board.

Many enterprises focus only on the technical steps to the cloud. Effective implementations mandate evangelizing the merits of cloud to stakeholders and influencers.

A cloud centre of excellence (CCoE) co-opts all users and influential others as stakeholders of the cloud project. An effective CCoE cuts across the hierarchy, including the CIO, CMO, HR, data scientists, business managers, and others.

The CCoE is the place to discuss ideas and frame action-plans for each area of concern. They brainstorm on how the cloud could offer a solution to unmet needs and plan specific objectives. They also roll out implementation targets and deadlines.

Technically, the CCoE oversees the implementation and management of the strategy. But its persuasive impact runs much deeper. The CCoE has the power to influence the workforce, and the wider the corporate culture. It speeds up the delivery of cloud products, and tweak implementations to match user needs.

3. Develop An Effective Tooling Strategy

Enterprises often find a wide choice of cloud management solutions confusing.

Match tools to requirements, minimizing the number of tools to fulfil needs. The best option is to use the cloud platform’s native toolset unless a new tool can justify itself. Use third-party cloud management platforms to augment functionality.

Optimise the choices. For instance, for some applications and integrations, existing SaaS may be most cost-effective than a new PaaS technology.

Customize the cloud to suit the nitty-gritty of operations. Make sure any new deployment offers a foundation to co-opt emerging technologies such as IoT and AI.

Select from the public cloud, private cloud, on-premises cloud and a hybrid mix depends on business needs, security requirements, and cost considerations.

4. Do Not Overlook Governance

Cloud governance is challenging even with a single cloud provider. With multi-cloud- the norm in enterprises now, governance issues may subvert even the best thought out implementations. For one, managing consumption is difficult with on-demand self-service resources offering infinite capacity.

Adjust provisioning and management processes to cope with the hybrid approach.

Have a system in place to understand the configurations of workloads. Understand who owns it, where it runs, and how updates take place.

Demarcate roles and responsibilities between the vendor and the self. Have clarity on cloud vendor responsibilities and policy controls needing internal management.

A cloud strategy without effective governance resembles “ink on dead trees in plastic binders.”

5. Roll Out Changes Gradually

Cloud projects are complex. It takes time for enterprises to get the skill-sets and expertise to run cloud services. Improving cloud adoption is often a multiyear approach.

Cloud adoption involves changes, which comes with its set of challenges. Change disrupts to status-quo, and force a learning curve on the workforce. The rank-and-file is always reluctant to adopt something new. The transparency required by cloud systems requires changes to the corporate culture.

Roll out cloud services gradually. Test and mature one implementation. Get the benefits and buy-in from stakeholders, and move to the next step. Side-by-side, spearhead training programs to improve cloud adoption.

The cloud is much more than a place to store and access data better. Approach it as an instrument to grow the business. Piecemeal and random cloud adoption is not sustainable to gain the benefits on offer. Realising the benefits requires a cloud strategy aligned to business strategy.