Thursday, March 28, 2024

Blog | Cloud as a business decision

By Mariels Almeda Winhoffer

mariels

New models for service consumption and delivery are presenting opportunities for innovation. These new delivery models are referred to as “cloud computing” and involve delivering business and IT services in new ways over the Internet.

A successful cloud adoption requires partnership between the IT professionals and executive teams to develop a strategy that considers both technology and overall business objectives.

Here are some important considerations when moving to the cloud. These inter-dependent-concerns cross both the business and IT agenda:

? Cloud is a new channel and the new business strategy and model for growth.
? Choose a trusted provider and global leader in cloud.
? Make sure data is auditable in your cloud.
? Cloud should be focused on open standards to have more flexibility.
? Cloud integrates a full service ecosystem of capabilities for the line of business, IT manager, and developer to build, consume and manage applications. Cloud computing provides another means of reaching customers, employees and suppliers ? it is a way to make sure that integration in the backend happens to achieve a more seamless approach to the customer experience — the notion of Omni channel.
? Cloud is a platform that enables an organization to scale and grow; it provides flexibility and accelerated time to value.

As mentioned on my previous article, far-sighted companies have already capitalized on cloud, including MediCard, one of the largest health maintenance organizations (HMO) in the Philippines, which looked to a cloud computing solution from IBM to help improve customer service, through faster and easier access to electronic patient health records.

These centralized customer data operations now drives greater efficiency and ensures quicker response time, enabling the company to easily expand its operations, thereby supporting MediCard?s future growth plans.

This finding of escalating cloud growth and acceptance is further supported by a recent survey done by the IBM Center for Applied Insights, which conducted a survey of 802 cloud decision makers and users, spanning 24 industries and 13 countries, including both growth and mature markets.

The survey revealed that the cloud?s strategic importance to decision-makers, such as CEOs, CMOs, finance, HR and procurement executives, is poised to double from 34 percent to 72 percent ? vaulting over their IT executive counterparts at 58 percent. In addition, IBM?s research found that leading organizations are looking to the cloud to differentiate them from their competitors,

In the end, deciding when and where to adopt cloud is a business decision. It requires IT professionals to take an entrepreneurial role within their companies, understanding the business considerations for deploying cloud and providing the best professional counsel to their colleagues to ensure objectives are met.

In this era of cognitive computing, the possibilities for cloud, and for organizations utilizing cloud, are limitless.

The author is the president and country general manager of IBM Philippines

Subscribe

- Advertisement -spot_img

RELEVANT STORIES

spot_img

LATEST

- Advertisement -spot_img