Organizing For The Cloud: Providing Additional Value To The Business By Optimizing The IT Operations Organization For Cloud

Cloud computing represents a major opportunity for IT. At the same time it presents challenges. Lines of Business are already by-passing IT and going directly to external cloud providers. Running workloads on external cloud provider infrastructure isn’t necessarily a bad thing but to regain control, IT must begin to think and act like a cloud provider. They must become service-driven which has far reaching implications. Moving forward, IT has the opportunity to “one-up” the cloud providers by becoming a Service Broker; making conscious decisions about the best location (internal private cloud versus external public cloud) at which to run workloads based on cost, quality of service, and risk. This allows IT to directly add value to the business in ways they haven’t been able to previously. Adding business value doesn’t stop there. IT also has the opportunity to become a Strategic Partner to the business by providing innovation that can drive business growth and directly impact the bottom line.

But how? To fully take advantage of cloud computing capabilities, IT must transform itself. This includes transformation from several perspectives as they relate to cloud: organizational, operational process and supporting tools, business management, and underlying software technology and architecture. When, not if, IT transforms itself it will enable business transformation.

While all of these perspectives need to be taken together in order to transition to a Service Broker and ultimately Strategic Partner, one of the most challenging is the IT organizational transformation. In this paper, we explore the “how” behind successfully transforming the IT organization for cloud. The organization implications of a new Cloud Operating Model are presented as well as a four step implementation roadmap highlighting the key activities and decisions needed along the way. Finally, we highlight key success factors that help you determine your progress during the journey to business transformation through IT transformation from an organizational perspective.