Five Ways the Cloud Will Change the Way You Run IT

As more organizations harness the low costs, elastic processing power and high flexibility of cloud computing services, the cloud-enabled business is progressing from theoretical blueprint to reality. This shift will reinvent the way technology services are delivered, changing the role and focus of the IT function forever.

Accenture identifies five ways in which the cloud will change how CIOs run their IT organizations to enable high performance.

Cloud brings a golden opportunity to redefine and reshape IT’s relationship with the business. This change can transform agility, speed and cost not only in IT, but also for the business as a whole—creating a new type of high-agility, high-growth organization that Accenture calls the “cloud-enabled business”.

As a CIO—or other technology or business leader—of a cloud-enabled organization, you will need to manage, organize and resource your IT function in a very different way.

Based on its own experience and its work with leading global clients, Accenture identified five ways in which cloud will change the way that IT organizations are run:

• IT must evolve to secure its future as a cloud-enabled business. The migration to cloud will shift value drivers like speed to market and operational agility to new levels. IT must reflect this shift by evolving the way it works with the business or risk redundancy.

• IT must shift its focus from building bespoke systems to selecting and managing preconfigured components. Competitive advantage will increasingly require the ability to procure and integrate the right cloud components rather than developing bespoke systems.

• IT must become the data custodian for the entire business. The ability to collect, manage, protect and analyze the flood of data produced by digitized processes is becoming a critical differentiator.

• IT must become a service director and integrator. In shifting its focus away from system builds and toward preconfigured components, IT must also begin to act as a director and integrator of a widening range of internally and externally sourced IT services, both legacy and cloud.

• IT must adopt a new operating model for the cloud era. IT must team closely with business customers to understand and meet their changing needs. 

In its new role as IT service director and integrator, IT will need a new focus on capabilities, functions and roles. The migration to the new cloud operating model will affect every area in IT—but an overarching imperative across the whole IT function will be to shift the skills mix toward higher-value activities. 

A highly simplified IT operating model for the typical IT organization of a cloud-enabled company is depicted in the below diagram.

Moving to this model will mean placing less emphasis on skills in IT service development and service delivery, and more on skills in IT management, service strategy and processes for managing businesses/suppliers and vendors. It will also be vital to invest in continuous skills development across all areas. 

In the future, the quality of an organization’s IT capability will depend increasingly on its ability to make effective use of the latest cloud innovations. Employees in all areas of the IT function will need continuous skill and knowledge development, to ensure they stay fully up to speed with market trends, capabilities and best practices.

Accenture continues to provide thought leadership in cloud computing, and has already gained extensive experience in helping enterprises use this technology approach to achieve high performance. Contact us to learn more.