A Cloud Computing Cookbook

Most enterprise information technology projects, perhaps 66 percent, do nothing other than support sales of existing products, according to Gartner (News - Alert) analysts. About 20 percent of IT projects are intended to improve processes related to sale and delivery of existing products.

Only about 14 percent are devoted to supporting the creation and sale of new products. Simply, those three buckets of activities might relate to “running your current business,” “growing revenues from your current business,” and “transforming your business.”

Given the unsettled and rapid changes in business environment most firms face, you might expect the balance of effort to shift from maintenance to either growth or transformation. But Pankaj Arora, Raj Biyani and Salil Dave, authors of a new book, “To the Cloud,” published by McGraw Hill, say that is not happening.

And they suggest that cloud computing could be a key enabler for supporting such shifts of effort in ways that help grow and transform businesses, not just maintain them.

Part of the issue is structural. Transformational technology and processes confer business advantage only so long as a firm’s competitors do not adopt those same practices. Over time, that means “transformational” technology devolves into a “maintenance” mode as all key competitors also adopt the formerly transformational processes and tools.

By implication, the only way to stay ahead is to keep innovating and transforming processes. Cloud computing helps in that regard, as it reduces the time and expense to pilot and then deploy a new application.

That is important if one assumes that the typical executive priorities are “transformation,” not “staying in the game,” while most of the actual IT effort goes into “maintenance” activities.

But there is an important caveat: the return on investment from a “transformational” project cannot really be measured. It is a bet on outcomes. So it arguably is helpful when the investment in a risky project can be limited. And that, say the authors, is one reason cloud computing is “better” than traditional methods of creating new applications.

New apps can be created faster, at lower cost. Also, cloud computing allows IT staffs to reduce the time, effort and money spent on “maintenance” activities, freeing up more resources to explore “transformational” projects.

“To the Cloud” provides tips for enterprise information technology executives about how to capture value, identify lead cloud computing apps, choose the right cloud computing models and allocate resources to get all that done.

The 122-page book provides an overview of the cloud computing value proposition, explains how to build a business case, choose adoption approaches and then execute on a cloud strategy and track success.