how does one differentiate between the needs of the different departments in his organization to implement services gradually, not all at once? Is it by priority or through risk assessment
@ eahurstjr The key considerations are the bandwidth available from your service provider, and the capacity of your internal networking equip (i.e switches, firewall/router, wifi, etc) to support the Cloud deployment.
@ Kim The size of the business and industry ecurity concerns typically dictate their preference for public or private cloud. Smaller business with less security concerns opt for public, while bigger entities or security conscious (ie healthcare) opt for private.
@ Mitch Most companies have been using hosted (Cloud) email for years before they realize what the Cloud is. However, hosted exchange is frequently an organizations first step into the cloud. VOIP has been another hot request.
Question: Do you find businesses are mostly developing solutions within a private cloud framework, or migrating operations and services to public cloud?
@Alison Tpically a department head will invite oyu into an organization. Sometimes the IT personell will invite you in, but that often proves to be more of an uphill battle for a service provider. Executive buy-in is critical.
@ Kim Absolutely. The requirements vary by industry. A call center may want to rollout a hosted VOIP solution to save money, while another industry is looking to provide their flex time employees a dedicated corporate line in their homes.
Question: It seems to me that different types of companies might want to put completely different operations and functions in the cloud: transactions, telecomms, mobile devicemanagement. Are you seeing a lot of variety in requirements?
@ Alison It truly depends on which part of the organization you are dialoging with. The finance department is going to focus on cost, while IT and marketing will be excited about the agility and communication improvements that can be realized.
jwallace - Good question, but, as you say, off-topic. We have limited time here and we'd like to keep things focused on the cloud. Maybe a topic for another 7DEE!
@ Kim Correct! An effective implementation demands interdepartmental executive buy-in. You don't want finance questioning why we are spending this money! You want them excited about the savings they are projected to receive.
The failure to set quantitative expectations and forgetting to make the appropriate infrasturcture upgrades are frequent omissions in the Cloud implementation process
Question: It seems to me the internal process prior to choosing a service can't just include IT. Must include business strategists, legal, others...right?
you sometimes have to get creative to determine how to track some of the ROI values but, you can usually come up with a means to track it before and after implementation
MOV are the reasons why executives and managers are willing to spend budget. ROI is how much tangible benefit can be measured and validated. Return can be time savings, cost savings, reduced downtime, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. As long as you can measure it, you can track it.
Know your audience, make sure you know what are their concerns and interests. Look at cell phones, people wanted the convenience so they tolerated a lot of expense and low quality voice.
Sucess is dependent on a well defined MOV (Managable Objective Value) that specifically states what the new system will provide and why individuals care about it.
lag & latency will be issues in the cloud - part of the technical considerations that either have to be addressed or accepted as limitations or "features"
change does equal friction always but it should be minimized and low impact if planning and preparation is done properly and supported by management with expectations being set & communicated to the end-user community
One of the "mistakes" on the EHR implementations, is that they did not make it transparent to the doctors and other health workers. Some doctors say I am not going to start learning how to type fast, etc. I just want to be able to do my job and help my patients!
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@aum: it has been raining here for months and months. An umbrella now always sits at the bottom of my bag. I suppose we will get lots and lots of snow, too. Climate change :(
@Aum: I always get all the times messed up when it changes. I have a multiple time app on my desktop, but since once I got confused anyways, I always double check. When did you change to windter time?
slide #16, Life just keeps becoming more and more complex. I don't remember calling customer service even once for my toaster (and I've had it for a long lon time).
I agree wholeheartedly with douglas when he says Implementation is the Key to defining and actually obtaining Success in the Cloud.Could'nt agree more!!!
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