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Deliver a Cloud Strategy Engagement

Produce a boardroom-ready cloud strategy that helps your customers transition from on-premises to the cloud.

Organizations’ challenges:

  • Migration from legacy system to cloud is complex and time-extensive.
  • Difficult to delineate a value proposition.
  • Inability to deliver and achieve desired benefits and mitigate the associated risks.

IT Consultants’ challenges:

  • Differentiate their services among competitors.
  • Not sure where to start the cloud journey with clients.
  • Lack a repeatable and actionable cloud strategy.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Every client is different, and their approach to cloud adoption is different. However, the problems and end goals of cloud adoption are the same for most businesses. In a unified approach, an effective and repeatable cloud vision and strategy help to understand and address the requirements/challenges of the client’s business, achieving desired outcomes and delivering a seamless experience of cloud adoption.

Impact and Result

  • Save Time: Info-Tech partners report saving at least 50% of their time spent when incorporating Info-Tech’s tools, templates, and repeatable methodology into a Cloud Strategy engagement.
  • Reduce Effort: Info-Tech partners report that the laborious effort of creating customized deliverables for each client is alleviated using the standardized deliverables in this blueprint.
  • Informed Decisions: Info-Tech partners describe that they did not have to start from scratch to build high-quality boardroom-ready deliverables, which results in saving a lot of time and focusing on the result- or outcome-driven discussion with the stakeholders or management team.
  • Increased Credibility: You increase your trust and credibility with your customers and prospects when you show them who is standing behind you. Leverage Info-Tech’s brand power as a research and advisory firm to bolster your customer’s confidence in you.

Deliver a Cloud Strategy Engagement Research & Tools

1. Deliver a Cloud Strategy Storyboard

Read our concise storyboard to find out how you can deliver a Cloud Strategy engagement that will save your own time while delighting your customer.


Partner Program Research Center

Deliver a Cloud Strategy Engagement

Produce a boardroom-ready Cloud Strategy that helps your customers transition from on-premises to the cloud.

Analyst Perspective

A strategized cloud journey navigates through pitfalls and opportunities

Brijesh Kumar.

The adoption of new technologies seems very exciting, and one of them is the cloud. Cloud services or solutions are leveraged by all-size organizations globally because of the number of benefits. Inevitably, the cloud is becoming part of most business facets and processes. The trend of cloud spending and migration to cloud services is not slowing down and touching higher numbers year over year.

Migrating to the cloud may sound like a seamless journey, but many find it more complicated as they progress through the migration. Cloud adoption comes with its challenges, risks, and roadblocks. Companies have various challenges during cloud adoption, from lack of skills to cost management. Businesses look to IT leaders and IT Service providers to achieve cloud benefits and desired outcomes, and to overcome these challenges. Plotting an effective and business-aligned cloud strategy is imperative to successful cloud migration and achieving organizational goals and growth.

There are plenty of opportunities for IT Services Providers with cloud expertise to help their clients in cloud adoption, but they lack an effective and repeatable cloud strategy to deliver. This storyboard will help you to get buy-in and demonstrate a step-by-step methodology to deliver a cloud vision and strategy engagement to your clients.

Brijesh Kumar
Research Specialist, Industry Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Challenges

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

Organizations are experiencing various cloud adoption challenges:

  • Migration from legacy system to cloud is complex and time-intensive.
  • Hard time delineating a value proposition.
  • Inability to deliver and achieve desired benefits and mitigate the associated risks.

IT consultants have challenges in helping their clients in cloud adoption:

  • Differentiate their services among competitors.
  • Not sure where to start the cloud journey with clients.
  • Lack a repeatable and an actionable cloud strategy.

IT consultants and their clients have various obstacles that prevent them from addressing those challenges:

  • Inability to decide the cloud maturity of clients.
  • Hasty decision to jump to the cloud rather than approach in a systematic fashion.
  • Unable to precisely define their vision and any strategy for cloud migration.
  • Inconsistent understanding of the cloud and how it can transform and benefit the business.
  • Deficiency of cloud management skills or expertise within an organization.

Follow a systematic Info-Tech approach to engage your client:

  • To define a cloud vision, evaluate cloud workloads’ suitability for the cloud, and understand their risks and benefits.
  • Build an effective cloud strategy focusing on four key areas: vision, people, governance and technology.

Info-Tech Insight

Every client is different, and their approach to cloud adoption is different. However, the problems and end goals of cloud adoption are the same for most clients. In a unified approach, an effective and repeatable cloud vision and strategy help to understand and address the requirements/challenges of the client’s business, achieving desired outcomes and delivering a seamless experience of cloud adoption.

A surge in Cloud spending, workloads, and data

Organizations are hitting higher numbers than ever before in cloud adoption.

In 2022, more than 50% of SMBs are spending at least $1.2M on public cloud – up from 38% in 2022. Moreover, 37% of large businesses allocated more than $12M for the cloud in their IT budget.

The image contains a screenshot of two graphs, where one demonstrates cloud spending and one is on Workloads and data in Cloud.

62% of SMBs and 55% of large enterprises will have their workloads and data on the public cloud by the end of 2022.

All businesses experience challenges in Cloud adoption

96% of IT leaders struggle to implement a cloud strategy. The top three cloud adoption issues are:

85% Security management remains among the top concerns for organizations when migrating to the cloud. Data security, data privacy, and lack of cloud security experts are the top reasons for the security.

83% Skills gap and resources in cloud management is another challenge in organizations. Companies are struggling to have cloud management skills and expertise.

81% Cloud cost is one of the major issues, which includes moving data into and between clouds and controlling cloud cost and moving data.

Source: Flexera, 2022; Foundry, 2022

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations continue to invest more in cloud services. But the challenges are increasing and not going away for both enterprises and SMBs, indicating the dire need to address them. Different business units or functional areas are siloed, hence their problems. These units or areas may solve the problems locally but not for other units and the rest of the organization, demanding a centralized approach and solutions to resolve the challenges of cloud adoption.

Cloud is a key technology initiative

Businesses that are going through digital transformation are taking a cloud-first approach to selecting new applications

88% Of businesses are executing on digital transformation initiative and likely to adopt cloud-based solutions

Source: SMB Technology Direction, 2021

63% Of businesses are adopting cloud solutions; this is up 4% from 2021.

Source: Flexera, 2022

Organizations are adopting more cloud solutions and services to embark on the journey of digital transformation and capitalize on new opportunities, helping businesses to continue to thrive and stay competitive.

Opportunities abound for IT Consultants to help out

18% Of organizations are spending more money and increasing the budget for the cloud from 22% in 2020 to 26% in 2022.

Source : SWZD, 2021

69% Of businesses look at new cloud technologies for business growth and competition in the market.

Source: SMB Technology Direction, 2021

Drivers for an increase in cloud share in businesses’ IT budget are reduced hardware spending and focus on technologies that enable businesses to grow and transform in the future.

Leverage your Info-Tech partnership to overcome challenges

If you are challenged with….

Then we encourage….

Inconsistent or inadequate methods to build and deliver a repeatable and actionable cloud strategy engagement

Using Info-Tech’s cloud research, which will assist you to create a business-aligned cloud vision and cloud strategy for your client.

Upskilling consulting staff on the delivery of a cloud strategy engagement

Using Info-Tech Advisory Services to access a Subject Matter Expert, who can guide you step-by-step to deliver an effective cloud strategy engagement to your clients and help you achieve desired outcomes.

Boring presentations, wordy and long documents, or detailed spreadsheets filled with technical details

Using Info-Tech’s pre-fabricated tools, templates, and boardroom-ready deliverables.

Identify your starting point in cloud engagement

Discovering where to start the cloud journey with your client is crucial for a seamless cloud adoption experience.

Decide your engagement with your client based on their current cloud state and its maturity

Cloud Vision

Cloud Strategy

The image contains a screenshot of the Define Your Cloud Vision blueprint. The image contains a screenshot of the Document your cloud strategy.
The image contains a screenshot of a vision tree related to the Cloud Vision research. The image contains a screenshot of a vision tree related to the Document your cloud strategy research.

Download– Define Your Cloud Vision

Download – Document Your Cloud Strategy

Build a repeatable and engaging cloud migration journey for your clients

Take your client on a successful cloud journey, from a vision to an actionable strategy.

Decide your engagement with your client based on their current cloud state and its maturity

The image contains a screenshot of the Define Your Cloud Vision blueprint. The image contains a screenshot of the Document your cloud strategy.

Understand cloud services

Different cloud services and delivery models are available. Understand which service and model will be best for your organization.

Cloud vision alignment

Align cloud vision and strategy with other business and technology strategies, supporting the overall organization mission.

Assess current workloads

Leverage cloud vision workbook to evaluate workloads at various level - migration, management, and risk and roadblocks.

Document people, governance and technology strategy

Documentation helps to plan, track progress and measure success metrics. A team of multidisciplinary experts (cloud center of excellence) supports secure, efficient, cost-effective, and uniform cloud adoption.

Identify and mitigate risks and roadblocks

Various components in a cloud strategy bring several risks and roadblocks. Identifying and mitigating them is imperative.

Deliver cloud strategy

Formalized business aligned and documented cloud strategy.

Deliver measurable results using ready-to-use tools and templates

Cloud vision and strategy blueprints are accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish desired outcomes for you and your customers:

Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

This presentation captures the results of the exercises and presents a complete vision to stakeholders including a desired target state, a rubric for decision-making, the results of the workload assessments, and an overall risk profile.

The image contains a screenshot of the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.
The image contains screenshot of the Cloud Vision Workbook.

Cloud Vision Workbook

The workbook includes the standard cloud workload assessment questionnaire, along with the results of the assessment. It also includes the milestone timeline for the implementation of the cloud vision.

Key deliverable:

Cloud Strategy Document

Inconsistencies and informality are the enemies of efficiency. Capture the results of the cloud strategy generation exercises in the cloud strategy document.

The image contains screenshot of the Cloud Strategy Document.

Up your cloud strategy engagement in the following measurable ways

Save time: Info-Tech Partners report saving at least 50% of their time when incorporating Info-Tech’s tools, templates, and repeatable methodology into an IT strategy engagement.

Reduce effort: Info-Tech Partners report that the laborious effort of creating customized deliverables for each client is alleviated using standardized deliverables in this blueprint.

Inform decisions: Info-Tech Partners describe that they did not have to start from scratch to build high-quality boardroom-ready deliverables, which results in saving a lot of time and focusing on the result- or outcome-driven discussion with the stakeholders or management team.

Increase credibility: You increase your trust and credibility with your customers and prospects when you show them who is standing behind you. Leverage Info-Tech’s brand power as a research and advisory firm to bolster your customer’s confidence in you.

Jeff Michaud.

“Whenever we used Info-Tech research material to deliver on consulting engagements, our customers reported that they had a better experience and were more satisfied with our services.

Also, the ability to edit and repurpose the Info-Tech content helped us not to start from scratch and saved a lot of time and effort for us.”

- Jeff Michaud

Manager in Technology Solutions,

MNP

Leverage cloud offerings as a differentiator

ITSPs needs to differentiate their cloud services based on value and experience delivery.

Modular cloud service offerings

Benefits and risks: Modular offerings can profoundly rely on industry expertise and knowledge of ITSPs in the cloud area. These ITSPs are proficient at identifying clients’ business obstacles, which impede business growth and revenue and provide the right solutions to the clients.

Business and technology alignment: ITSPs must align cloud solutions and services with business goals and objectives. The modular cloud offerings enable ITSPs to become strategic business partners to their clients and lead cloud technology initiatives.

Value delivery: Value delivery is the key ingredient of modular cloud engagement offerings. To deliver high-quality service and experience, ITSPs must make a strong cloud business case for delivering tangible and intangible outcomes to their clients.

“For consultants, differentiating themselves among their competitors in the cloud space is critical. They should define their services and value proposition, articulating how they deliver business-aligned cloud strategy, cloud implementation, and cloud management to achieve desired outcomes for clients.

– Derek Shank, Head of Research, Stratascale

Cloud vision and strategy

  • Build a business-aligned cloud vision, which will be a roadmap of initiatives for actions.
  • Document people, technology, and governance as part of the framework for decision makings.

Cloud implementation

  • Start with the used cloud case and pilot scale.
  • Measure success and scale cloud adoption.
  • Upskill and train employees with cloud culture.

Cloud management

  • Assure business-aligned cloud goals and cloud benefits are achieved while mitigating the risks.
  • Manage and control cloud cost and data security, including data privacy and compliance.

Build a thorough cloud journey roadmap

Cloud Vision and Strategy

Download– Define Your Cloud Vision

Download– Document Your Cloud Strategy

Cloud Implementation

Cloud Management

Download – Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS

Download – Take Control of Cloud Costs on Azure

Download – Find Value with Cloud Asset Management

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.” “Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.” “We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.” “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

DIY: Use Info-Tech’s methodology for defining your cloud vision

1. Understand the cloud

2. Assess workloads

3. Identify and mitigate risks

4. Bridge the gap and create the vision

Phase steps

  1. Generate goals and drivers
  2. Explore cloud characteristics
  3. Create a current state summary
  4. Select workloads for analysis
  1. Conduct workload assessments
  2. Determine workload future state
  1. Generate risks and roadblocks
  2. Mitigate risks and roadblocks
  3. Define roadmap initiatives
  1. Review and assign work items
  2. Finalize cloud decision framework
  3. Create cloud vision

Phase outcomes

  • List of goals and drivers
  • Shared understanding of cloud terms
  • Current state of cloud in the organization
  • List of workloads to be assessed
  • Completed workload assessments
  • Defined workload future state
  • List of risks and roadblocks
  • List of mitigations
  • Defined roadmap initiatives
  • Cloud roadmap
  • Cloud decision framework
  • Completed Cloud Vision Executive Presentation
Deliver a Cloud Strategy Engagement preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 4 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Document your vision and alignment.
  • Call 1: Review existing vision/strategy documentation.

Guided Implementation 2: Record your people strategy.
  • Call 1: Review progress on skills, roles, and governance bodies.

Guided Implementation 3: Document governance principles.
  • Call 1: Work through integration, architecture, finance management etc. based on requests (may be more than one call).

Guided Implementation 4: Formalize your technology strategy.
  • Call 1: Discuss challenges with monitoring, provisioning, and migration as needed.

Contributors

Derek Shank, Head of Research, Stratascale

Jeff Michaud, Manager in Technology Solutions, MN

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