Five questions to help business and IT "think big" about cloud computing

Part of what I do on a day-to-day basis is educate business people who are interested in learning more about cloud computing.  One executive asked me a great question last week that I wanted to share with the community.

After learning the basics of Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service, he inquired, "This is interesting, but what questions should I use to spur the right conversation with my CIO about cloud computing?  And which real-life examples will keep that conversation from getting academic?"

It was a great request, because too often I think we're focusing on the wrong questions about cloud computing.  Today most of the questions around the cloud center on security, reliability and performance. Those are important questions - things that every enterprise needs to be completely satisfied with to make the move to the cloud -- but those conversations need to happen in the context of what the business can do with the cloud.

So here are five questions that have been useful in our work helping business and IT work together to "think big" about cloud computing.  I've picked one real-life case study for each question from my experience working with clients at Appirio, but would love learn more about other examples (or counter-examples!) in the comments below:

1. How will the availability of cloud services affect your specific industry?

This is an interesting place to start, because if you don't take advantage of the opportunities created by cloud computing in your industry, it's a good bet that one of your competitors will. Think about problems in your industry that have been too expensive or time consuming to solve using traditional technology.  Now think about how the availability of instantly accessible, low cost cloud-based services might make those problems tractable.  

Healthcare is a perfect example: RehabCare is a $1.6 billion provider of post-acute care services for patients and hospitals across the U.S..  They're driving a transformation of their industry through electronic medical records and mobile solutions for caregivers, powered by a flexible cloud platform that can adapt to rapidly changing market and regulatory conditions.  Digitizing medical records and making that data securely available anywhere is only possible for RehabCare because they don't need to worry about any of the underlying application platforms or infrastructure, and are able to use the cloud in a way that's consistent with their very stringent security and privacy requirements.  (Click here for a case study.)

2. How can the cloud enable your company's long-term strategy?

Look at each element of your company's three-year strategy and ask a similar question -- how will the availability of cloud services provide building blocks for your business's growth and the systems that support that growth?  What will you be able to focus your attention on if you don't need to build certain components from scratch?

Japan Post is the largest employer in Japan, offering postal, banking and life insurance services.  They've talked publicly about how they're using the cloud to disentangle their IT systems from other parts of their business as part of a multi-year corporate transformation.  They identified dozens of apps to move to Force.com, saving them $11M in development costs and bringing solutions live three times faster.  But the real impact is how cloud computing is enabling Japan Post's long term strategy. (Click here for a case study.)

3. How can the cloud enable you to enter new lines of business?

Look at market segments that have traditionally been too expensive to profitably serve.  Now ask whether the instant availability of inexpensive cloud services might change that arithmetic.

Author Solutions provides services and systems to publish, promote and sell books.  They specialize in low-run books, but had never been able to profitably serve the true "long tail" of book publishing.  But when they were able to re-use the workflow and portal capabilities of Force.com, they were able to handle  low-volume book orders in a completely automated fashion, opening up an entirely new market segment. (Click here for a case study.)

4. How can the cloud change how you engage with customers?

Look at the gaps in how you interact with customers, and ask whether easy-to-integrate cloud platforms can help you bridge them, and present a "single face" to your customer community.

Qualcomm, for example, had an on-premise, difficult-to-maintain customer relationship management system with unreliable data.  They built a innovative "service cloud" for their 1,000 call center agents and 15,000 portal users using salesforce.com. Qualcomm was able to save costs by shutting down 8 servers in their data center, but the real impact to the business was on the quality of their customer engagement. (Click here for a case study.)   

5. How can the cloud help you get something to market fast (faster than your competition)?

Pick a project that you'd love to do, but "couldn't possibly" get done in time.  Now ask whether the availability of instantly available building blocks and targeted services from the public cloud could make that project possible.  

Last year around the presidential inauguration, Starbucks' head of marketing wanted to respond to Obama's national call to service with a campaign to encourage volunteerism in and around Starbucks stores nationwide.  Using cloud platforms from salesforce.com and Facebook, he launched a new web application in just four weeks that offered customers a free cup of coffee in exchange for them pledging hours of community service -- just in time for its debut on the Oprah Winfrey show which attracted millions of viewers ... and possible volunteers.

Case Study:

The goal of these questions is to change the tenor of the conversation between business and IT.  Nobody in IT likes saying "no" to the business all the time.  Now, with the availability of cloud services, IT can finally be an enabler of innovation instead of an inhibitor.  I hope these questions get the juices flowing-- share your own experiences in the comments below!

Ryan Nichols is the Vice President of Cloudsourcing and Cloud Strategy for Appirio.