How to Make the Cloud Rain Business Benefits

The cloud just did a cicada. After being obscured in the dark abyss of doubt, uncertainty, and apprehension for some time, cloud computing, just like the cicadas, has finally emerged, wings and all, to fill up the IT world with its buzz.

In the 2013 edition of the CIO Mid Year Review, cloud computing figured as the third technology that will have the most profound effect on CIOs’ role—with 14.7 percent of the CIOs holding this view. It also reveals that a good 41 percent of CIOs have completed a private cloud project, 16.7 percent have gone hybrid, and 25.3 percent have gone the public route in the last 12 months. The survey results clearly showcase an upward curve for cloud computing, with the cloud—in its various avatars—topping the list of projects that many CIOs had undertaken.

So, what have these ‘cloud conquerors’ been trying to achieve in the last one year? Out of the 13 cloud-centric projects that won the CIO100 award in 2013, almost all have delivered huge cost savings for their respective organizations. Most of them have also helped the CIOs improve their companies’ ability to be more flexible and scalable in meeting changing business demands. These results match the findings of the CIO Cloud Computing Survey 2012, in which 74.4 percent of the CIOs listed scalability-on-demand/flexibility to the business as one of the primary reasons for adopting cloud—the other top reasons being faster provisioning/better utilization of IT infrastructure capacity (51.3 percent), and reduced cost (42.1 percent).

In a world where speculations and doubts around the benefits and challenges of cloud has driven all at sea, a few CIOs stood out and made a few game-changing decisions for their organizations. They overcame common prejudices, took risks, convinced managements, and broke their heads over complicated SLAs. Ultimately, this is how they made the cloud rain business benefits.

http://www.cio.in/article/how-make-cloud-rain-business-benefits