Insights • 4 minutes read

Cloud Optimisation – What does ‘doing it right’ look like?

Over the years, many organisations have learned cloud lessons through lived experience – a transformation or cloud migration that ended up being more expensive or less effective than predicted.

Published on

November 9, 2022

Maximising value in the cloud

While the benefits of cloud are more apparent than ever, many organisations are still grappling to realise its full value.

So, if you’ve migrated to the cloud, assessed your current environment, established a baseline for ongoing cloud optimisation, but you’re yet to discover business value, you’re not alone.

But while some organisations are struggling to reap the rewards, others have begun to see the benefits. These outperformers have found a right way to do it – not only are they able to drive increased business value in the cloud, but they’re doing it at a lower cost.

What are they doing that others aren’t? There are three steps you can take to begin working towards establishing a successful foundation for maximising value in the cloud

1. Start with ‘why’

Successful businesses define what they hope to gain. Whether it’s a migration business case or transformation program, what does your initiative seek to achieve? Gartner Inc., reports that while 70% of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud by 2024, three out of four organisations do not have a fit-for-purpose cloud strategy. Whatever your ‘why’ is, let it guide your cloud journey – it’s your true north.

Unfortunately, time and time again, organisations begin their cloud migration without fully understanding its value and purpose first. Interactive’s GM of Business Transformation, Dan Cox, explains that without a clear idea of what a project aims to achieve, organisations are unable to establish success measures to guide and evaluate progress.

It’s crucial that the benefits, risks, costs, and savings of your cloud initiative can be quantified. So, when you’re a few months into a program, you can stop, go back to the ‘why’ and ensure you’re all still driving towards the same goal.

2. Migration is not an outcome

So, you’ve finally completed your cloud migration. You let out a sigh of relief, close the program, pour a glass of wine, put your feet up and relish in the moment you think signals the end of a big job. If only…

Cloud migration can more accurately be defined as the beginning of the journey. Just getting there is not an outcome. Think about how far into the future you are casting your planning horizon and you should see migration as a step early in that plan. Migration is ultimately just table stakes; only after it’s complete can you begin to consider driving business benefit.

Ben Creamer, GM at Lynkz, has supported numerous customers with modernising their software and applications during their cloud optimisation journey. “Migration is just the start of your real automation journey. At Lynx, we look at numerous benefits the cloud offers and how it can provide you with elasticity, data, or scalability – cloud features and services that you would not be able to leverage if your application isn’t modernised”, explains Ben.

Think of migration as the gateway to cloud optimisation – it marks the beginning of your journey towards business value.

3. Perfect is the enemy of done

While it’s important to invest time and effort into creating your roadmap business case, it’s equally important to just get started. Many organisations get stuck in the business case phase and spend an awful lot of time modelling the unknown unknowns to the best of their ability. All the while, there’s no one on the tools applying their learnings or uncovering things as they go.

Interactive’s Solutions Architect Manager, Lucas Smith, explains that cloud infrastructure enables organisations to experiment with applications and new business models at lower cost and greater speed.

KEY INSIGHT The great thing about cloud is you don’t have to plan a 600-account structure with everything planned upfront. You can build a proof-of-concept environment in a couple of days and as long as you have security covered, you can get in there and start experimenting to begin driving value.

Go back to the beginning and start with the ‘why’. Think about what ‘done’ looks like and what you need to achieve for that to happen. But most importantly, get started as early into that program as possible so your team can begin to learn as you go.

Get started

While cloud offers immense value, the benefits won’t magically appear. With a well-defined, value orientated strategy, organisations can look beyond simply migrating to the cloud and work towards discovering the many benefits waiting on the other side. All that’s left is to choose the best team and get started.