How are priorities of IT leaders changing?
Did you know that 54% of CIOs feel that cloud computing allows them to devote their time to innovation and business strategy? In the meantime they need to be conscious that a storm is coming! Revolutions in the workplace, ranging from users taking control of their own IT requirements (challenging IT teams to maintain high standards of security and efficiency) to the exponential increase in data as a result of the digital revolution and social media.
With the reshaping of the IT landscape, comes the increase in the need for flexibility and adaptability of IT management to embrace new roles and maintain expectations of their internal customers. This must be a daunting prospect as so many suppliers and vendors promise to deliver the Cloud for this and virtual hosting for that at the same time as no one is actually explaining the difference between private, public and hybrid clouds, or even agree on the actual definition of the term "Cloud".
Choosing the right service partner for your organisation is very important. The ideal supplier will ensure that you fully understand what the options are and how they impact the business issues or disruptive events you are facing. At the same time we must not forget that at the business level, the Cloud is a service for which there are strict SLAs and performance tracking facilities with utility pricing; so as long as the solution resolves the business issues for which it is designed, you don’t need to worry about how it is delivered and what components are used, only the outcome.
This approach of telling your service partner what you want and letting them concentrate on delivering it with complete peace of mind will leave you more time to concentrate on innovation and business strategy. It's how you always thought IT outsourcing should work.
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