UPDATED 13:27 EDT / AUGUST 26 2013

CIOs Need a Corporate Plan for the Cloud

CIOs who do not have a corporate plan for getting maximum business advantage from the Cloud are dangerously behind the times, and those who think that nobody in their company is using Cloud services are in denial. That is the thrust of a report on the state of cloud services by guest analyst and Senior Site Editor at CIO Media Group Wendy Schuchart.

In the detailed article, Schuchart discusses the history and attractions of Cloud computing to end users with a strong focus on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack. She warns that CIOs who do not get ahead on Public Cloud services risk seeing shadow IT organizations in operating groups that have no connection to the IT Organization take over increasing amounts of IT support. Politically this erodes the CIO’s power and just confirms the impression that the ITO is a hindrance rather than a partner to the business organization. And these groups may not understand the importance of such issues as data security and QoS, resulting in cloud service choices that may leave sensitive data at risk or unavailable to other parts of the enterprise or applications that need that data for instance for decision support analysis.

CIOs also need to be transparent to the IT staff about the enterprise Cloud strategy. Often IT staff sees migration to the Cloud as a staff shrinkage strategy, even though in practice this has not been the case. However, while moving some compute loads to the Public Cloud may not be designed to eliminate jobs, it is never a job creation strategy. Staff members need to understand how their jobs — and the positions they may aspire to in the future — will change. Anything less than compete transparency will result in resistance from staff, shrinking morale, and possibly the loss of the top performers, who are always the people who can find new jobs most easily.

For these reasons, Schuchart writes, “It’s absolutely crucial that CIOs have some kind of cloud strategy in place and also take care to be completely open and transparent about this initiative to staff.”

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