According to a CloudView survey and business value practice study supported by SAP and conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC), a number of organisations are clueless regarding how mature their cloud strategy really is and is it effective enough to help them transform their businesses. CloudView identifies key strategic issues and business processes to address cloud maturity gaps.

According to Robert Mahowald, program vice president, software as a service and cloud services, IDC, “Customers realise that they have managed the first phase of moving into the cloud – they have educated themselves and sourced new capabilities necessary to begin the journey. The stumbling blocks are now at the managed and optimised level, with skill sets required that will allow the organization to focus on strategy versus day-to-day operations in faster time to provision new services, in reduced information technology (IT) costs and perhaps, most importantly, in the ability to make more revenue.”

A few of the key highlights and conclusions of the CloudView survey and business value practice study include:

A number of companies are naïve about how mature their cloud strategy really is. A key reason is the significant shortage in necessary IT skills and strategic approach, and the business-process change required to get to the next level. Implementing measures for collaborative business and IT governance, establishing consistent processes to identify which applications can best benefit from cloud and targeted education and training will help close these gaps.

A cloud strategy is considered mature not only when a consistent enterprise-wide approach to cloud is driving business innovation, but specifically when the lines of business are involved up front in the process. Put simply, a collaborative approach between IT and the business, centred on the needs of the customer, is the single most important element of a mature cloud strategy.

Cloud maturity is the point in an organisation’s cloud transformation when it starts to reap real business benefits that go beyond IT efficiencies or total cost of ownership considerations. This includes developing net-new sources of revenue; engaging more deeply across employees, partners and customers; and using a more strategic and collaborative approach to IT that drives new value and greater competitive advantage.

Organisations that have a balanced use of cloud – the best mix of external sourcing and internal transformation – are those where business units have the freedom, flexibility and agility to respond quicker to customer needs to drive revenue. It includes having the IT organisation right there with them as strategic enabler.

“Cloud is fast becoming a primary platform for business as organizations are freed from the constraints of building and maintaining their infrastructure and instead can focus on advancing their core business. IT runs a very real risk by not pulling in their business counterparts in their up-front cloud strategy,” says Rob Glickman, vice-president, SAP Cloud and Line of Business Marketing, SAP. “And business units must partner with IT as their strategic arm to help them serve their customer and win – if not, business units typically go rogue and create unwieldy silos of chaos that destroy customer value over time.”

As businesses move up the maturity scale, they will increasingly look to vendors who can provide a more complete set of end-to-end workflows of mission critical applications, coupled with deep knowledge and expertise across industries and lines of business.