To Cloud and Beyond – HexaRising ‘19
Imagine a setting in Disney’s dreamy Dolphin Resort in the sunny and warm Orlando – a stark contrast to the rest of the country, which was recovering from the sub-zeros of the polar vortex. The topic was timely – it had been nearly a decade, since cloud technology ; a concept that changed the face of IT, hit the Gartner hype-cycle and while now we have ample agreement on the relevance of cloud, making it work in the enterprise setting and moving to a cloud-first and cloud-only future state, still remains an enigma and a vexing challenge for many organizations.
I had a chance to be the moderator for a client panel on the topic of Cloudification during our annual customer meet ‘HexaRising 2019’! The blend of client panel was the brightest spot at the discussion that was titled; ‘Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Fog’. They were diverse, experienced, and very-articulate. There were a myriad mix of senior executives from a leading Big-Four Professional Services firm, one of the largest mortgage financing companies, a market leader in health information & clinical research, and the fastest-growing Trust & Corporate services company. On the face of it, not much in common across their businesses, but as we engaged in one spirited conversation after another, we realized they had had several experiences and examples to showcase that comprised of shared features and of bespoke amplification of every cloud journey and challenges faced in the course of time. Over the discussion that lasted nearly an hour, the audience was held in rapt attention.
We covered the drivers for their organizations’ cloud journeys and the strategic imperatives that led the way. We encouraged them to speak about specific use cases that were a natural fit for cloud adoption/migration. From moving analytics and transaction processing to the cloud, to developing engagement & collaboration in workspaces that are cloud native, to leveraging the power of public cloud, while managing a hybrid existence, we heard it all. One point of concurrence was that there are clearly areas and business imperatives, like agility, speed to market, and managing large computing loads that would be impossible to execute without leveraging cloud infrastructure.
The challenges in cloud adoption strategy that were put forth had a common theme too: lack of enough skilled cloud practitioners to successfully enable some key initiatives and accelerating the movement. Another challenge was the aspect around change management and governance of cloud transformation & orchestration efforts: which laid mostly on unclear and foggy grounds!
An interesting feature that gained traction during the discussion and was germane to each of the participants, was the regulated nature of their business, and the resulting compliance & privacy requirements that constrained the adoption of various cloud features and models.
The panelists were quite clear about what lies at the end of the road in terms of, ‘What next for Cloud?’, and even that in a few years’ time, almost everything will be on cloud and no one will talk about it as optional.
But the road ahead itself and what it will take to get to that end remains foggy for most.
Getting the balance right between the guardrails of security, resiliency, privacy, agility, & efficiencies, while orchestrating the cloud transformation with the right skill sets & governance model as the guiding principles that light the way – that is what it will take, was the panel’s conclusion!
About HexaRising
HexaRising is a larger-than-life customer-meet from Hexaware. 2019 saw the event held at the luxurious Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Orlando, FL between 6th – 8th February. The event was punctuated by star-studded keynotes, networking activities to unwind and insightful fun.
Cloudify Everything
Cloudify Everything is Hexaware’s flagship path-breaking strategy that calls upon disruptive cloud solutions, tools and platforms. The cloud adoption paradigm mandates complete lifecycle on cloud, providing the right IT infrastructure environment for driving digital transformation plans achieving targeted business objectives.
About the Author
Arun Ramachandran is the EVP & Global Head – Professional Services at Hexaware Technologies. He is the Strategy Expert as well as a thought-leader in the field of Trust, Technology, Transformation & Turnarounds. Arun Ramchandran is based out of Palo Alto in California. He leads the strategic initiatives under Hexaware’s Professional Services offering globally. He is responsible for working directly with Hexaware’s Professional Services clients globally, expanding on existing relationships and nurturing new ones, delivering digital transformation services to enable innovation and agility.
