Flexibility. Scalability. Innovation.
These three ideas encapsulate the promise of the cloud. With its rate of adoption growing exponentially, and accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the ability for organisations to continue to build a cloud-based future is now more important than ever before.
IT leaders and CEOs are aware of the cloud’s inescapable pull. Bloomberg estimates up to 32% of IT budgets will be dedicated to the cloud by the end of 2021 with a massive overall increase in cloud spend.
We are now nearing a critical threshold where companies can either cash their chips or go all in and adopt what is now actually an operational necessity and a growth imperative.
Even if your organisation already understands the importance of cloud and your business is on this trajectory, it is vital that you maximise your investment by ensuring adoption across all levels of the organisation.
What is cloud adoption?
Simply put, cloud adoption is ensuring everyone uses your cloud technologies in the way that is intended to realise the value of the investment.
The technical side of a cloud programme often gains the limelight, but the human element is equally important. All levels of the organisation have a crucial role to play as organisations use cloud to transform and grow.
Leadership must be wholly committed to the journey, actively driving the route forward and promoting the benefits. Managers need to understand the value and clearly communicate that to their teams and team members need to be supported positively and regularly before and after go live so they can adapt to the new ways of working.
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What are some of the key components of cloud adoption approaches?
Whilst every company will have a unique optimal cloud adoption path, successful and sustainable cloud adoption strategies have certain things in common. These are:
- Leadership buy-in at all levels of the organization – it’s vital that all leaders are galvanized behind a compelling vision and are prepared to get behind and advocate the change – even if some resistance and skepticism is prevalent within the organisation. Similarly, the role of middle management in leading change must not be under-estimated; their exposure and influence over the wider workforce can make or break the journey to cloud.
- Clear definition, communication and embedding of benefits – ensuring that everyone is aware of the ‘what’s in it for me’ remains a staple component of change – but how it lands varies from project to project. The key differentiation for cloud projects is the use of iterative (agile) programme methodologies. In the same way change interventions and communications need to be iterative, but well planned. It is important to ensure timely messaging that is aligned with project releases and in lock step with wider organizational messaging.
- Creating a change and advocacy network – get the new features into the hands of enthusiastic team players across the organization in order to realize the benefit of the cloud programme much earlier in the deployment cycle. This network will also act as a ‘critical friend’ who ensures relevance of the tech.
There are of course many more ways to increase the chances of success as you work along your cloud adoption roadmap. Working with a partner that has experience implementing and successfully executing cloud adoption strategies will help you find the right path for your team.
