McKinsey and Company have produced a podcast (http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/learning-from-leaders-in-cloud-infrastructure-adoption) that reviews their October 2016 research report on cloud adoption (http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/leaders-and-laggards-in-enterprise-cloud-infrastructure-adoption). This article and podcast are insightful. You should listen and read each one.
However, just in case you would rather have a quick summary, here you go:
Short version, enterprise customers are dramatically shifting their behavior to include public cloud resources. Leading companies have already moved more than 50% of their operations to the public cloud whereas laggards (in their study) often have less than 5% of operations on the public cloud. This is consistent with market research and customer conversations completed by OpsCompass.
Leading companies are thinking and acting differently when they consider their public cloud strategy. Speed to market is critical. Security is no longer a discrete challenge but more of a fungible resource woven directly into the cloud fabric itself.
This shift is the primary driver behind the formation of OpsCompass. So, not only do we see the shift as real but we see platform and policy guardrails as indispensable for companies who want to safely accelerate cloud adoption and remain competitive. Whether leader or laggard, OpsCompass’ initial product, Helm, helps companies benefit from public cloud efficiency and speed.
McKinsey and Company representatives describe some of their findings. Key ones include:
- Shifting operations and development to the public cloud is accelerating
- Many companies are doing this for speed, not cost
- However, one primary benefit found from those that shift more operations to the cloud is cost – “leading companies save 2x more than laggards”
- Many hurdles are simply going away and becoming acceptable risks. For example, security concerns have become the cost of doing business – not reasons for holding back cloud operations
- Having a good road map and strategy is critical (this is one place that OpsCompass can help)
In other words, leading companies are considering not just how to explore the possible use of cloud technology but are already taking advantage of the public cloud.
We’ve expressly designed Helm and our service offerings to address this rapid transition that many enterprises are pursuing. Specifically, OpsCompass focuses on providing a comprehensive guide, deployment templates, and automated guardrails to help ensure that transitions to the public cloud go smoothly – but are still manageable even for internal staff that are used to traditional tools and hardware.
OpsCompass believes that while many leading companies are developing in public cloud offerings, such as Azure. Most companies will need to develop mature business processes to compete in the future. There are many useful hints described in the McKinsey articles for these enterprises seeking to evolve their operations.
