A CIO's Reflections on Moving a 40-Year-Old Company to the Cloud

<p>Today cloud computing is driving much of the technological advancement. Any IT problem or solution is, one way or another, related to cloud computing. Because each of my previous postings has centered on the cloud, I realized it would be a good time to provide my viewpoint as the CIO of a forty-year-old firm that has recently moved to a 100% cloud-based portfolio.</p><h2>The Challenge: A Severely Antiquated IT Environment</h2><p>When I joined the firm in early 2014, the IT environment was severely antiquated and, in so many cases, built on edge solutions and platforms. These very old versions of on-premise apps were highly customized and had not been upgraded or patched for a long time. IT lived in a world where changes were feared, both because of the frailties of the power grid and of the dread of being held liable if those updates resulted in an outage. Despite this, the maintenance expenses for goods we were not servicing or upgrading were substantial.</p><h2>Developing Resources</h2><p>Fortunately, our CEO and CFO saw the critical need to transform the IT function and capabilities, and they were willing to make the necessary expenditures. It was obvious to them and to me that the majority of our apps, data, and services would be moved to the Cloud. Our initial challenge was to convince the IT staff, which, while highly skilled, was stuck in the traditional way of doing things: move slowly and don't damage anything.</p><p>The skill sets required migrated away from developers, administrators, and DBAs and toward business analysts, data analysts, and integration specialists. People had to be retrained or repurposed in many situations, while in others, fresh personnel with cloud solution expertise had to be hired from outside.</p><h2>Finding the Right Vendors</h2><p>It took some effort to find suitable providers. Some of our vendors were unprepared for the complexity of our company and, in some cases, grossly understated it in their offers. One of the smartest decisions we made was to seek advice from boutique consulting companies with extensive knowledge of a certain product or technology. With this outside assistance, we were able to tap into a more extensive knowledge base and swiftly identify acceptable vendors and solutions.</p><h2>Reaping the Benefits</h2><p>If I had to pick just one reason to drive our cloud migration, it would be speed to market in terms of making modifications and adding features and functionalities rapidly to empower our business. Lengthy implementation cycles and focusing on the underlying platforms are no longer the norm. Our attention is now focused on business dialogues, testing, and implementation.</p><p>We reversed the 80/20 ratio — now 80 percent of our time is spent on business-impacting tasks rather than maintenance. Cloud apps have significantly improved our capabilities, particularly in terms of having interconnected systems with a unified data model and reporting platform. Currently, nearly every system is linked together utilizing an integration toolset, ensuring that data flows uniformly between systems.</p><p>Applied Utility Auditors has helped dozens of businesses navigate cloud migrations. Our agnostic approach means we recommend the solution that's right for your business. Call us at (888) 208-0020.</p>