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3 ways to get buy-in for your cloud strategy

Though IT leaders are sold on the benefits of cloud, non-technical management may need more convincing. Here are some winning arguments to support your business’s journey to the cloud.

People conversing

For IT leaders, getting buy-in from stakeholders who have a limited understanding about the risks and demands of enterprise technology is part and parcel of the job. According to an annual survey of CIOs worldwide, nearly half of businesses have at least 10% of their tech spend controlled by external departments. IT leaders often have to sell the business case for these technologies to individuals more risk averse than even they are due to a lack of tech-savvy and/or a trepidation towards change in general. This may explain the wide gaps between digital leaders and others when it comes to investing in new technology.

With regard to investment in mobile solutions to AI/machine-learning and robotic process automation, digital leaders showed a higher rate of adoption across the board than non-digital leaders. But this difference was most pronounced regarding cloud, with 52% of digital leaders reporting significant investment in it compared to 29% for other stakeholders.

Still, while cloud investment is growing, it continues to be outpaced by spending on traditional infrastructure. In fact, although IT leaders widely recognize the benefits of the cloud, cloud computing is still cited as the top risk concern for executives in risk, audit, finance and compliance.

Digital leaders are more likely to be investing in technologies across the board compared to others and often vastly so. More than half (52 per cent) have invested in cloud compared to less than a third (29 per cent) of others.

Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2018

If you’re challenged with convincing stakeholders in your organization to shift to the cloud, here are three business cases to support your argument:

1. Cost-effectiveness

To convince non-IT stakeholders how the cloud can save your company money, it’s useful to fully understand where the cost savings may come from. One way is through a shift from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operating expenditure (OpEX). In the CapEx model, businesses invest in fixed-priced assets, such as the purchase and maintenance of servers and other equipment. The cost is then expensed using a depreciation model, which amortizes the spend over a number of years. OpEx expenses, meanwhile, are services that can be fully written off for the income year in which they occur. The scalable nature of the cloud can result in further cost savings because, unlike traditional infrastructure, you can, depending on the deployment model(s) that’s best for you, pay for resources as you use them, or pay for a reservation of computing resources. You can also save on costs related to maintenance and staffing, depending on how many of those elements you offload onto your cloud provider.

2. Compliance

According to recent research conducted by Rogers,* about a third of businesses say compliance concerns impacted their cloud strategy. But with the variety of cloud solutions available, regulatory compliance regulations need not be so intimidating. While some industries have strict requirements around shared tenancy and data sovereignty, private (single-tenant) cloud solutions and/or utilizing a provider whose data centres are located exclusively in Canada can resolve these concerns.

3. Security

Data security concerns are frequently cited as a top barrier to cloud adoption. But the belief that the cloud is more vulnerable to breaches and attacks than traditional infrastructure isn’t grounded in reality. In fact, cloud providers may be better able to protect your data because they employ state-of-the-art security on their premises, which requires a high degree of dedication and resourcing. This level of full-time service and dedicated expertise is part of what you pay for in a cloud solution, offloading many of your own in-house demands.

Convincing non-IT management to make a major shift to any new technology requires you understand their common concerns and misconceptions that are barriers to adoption. But from cost savings to compliance to security, there are compelling arguments you can present to successfully business’s shift to the cloud.