Page 8 - EngineerIT September 2022

ICT

CIO Playbook: How to pitch

As-a-Service to your organisation

By Doug Woolley, Managing Director, Dell Technologies South Africa

he CIOs’ work fuelling their companies amid the pandemic was critical to keeping new digital services for customers and
the economy moving forward. IT leaders have rapidly adopted cloud services and employees with little fuss.
Tstitched together various applications to support their businesses. It made for a great story. Fearing
With digital transformations forever evolving in a world reshaped by various business disruption amid a punishing
disruptions, C-suite leaders want assurances their CIO peers are putting the business in pandemic, brands leaned heavily
the best position to not only capture but sustain a competitive advantage. into multiple cloud applications and
More than ever, CIOs must be ready to adapt to change. As a result, they are cloud infrastructure platforms to run
increasingly turning to as-a-service IT models which offer a cloud experience anywhere everything from video collaboration
they operate – from the data centre to the edge, enabling CIOs to focus on achieving to curbside delivery and new-fangled
business outcomes and uncovering new business opportunities. mobile applications.
But this shift can’t happen overnight. As with migrations to any emerging technology Seventy-eight percent of
paradigm, adoption of as-a-Service IT requires some logistical jujitsu. Operating models organisations globally are leveraging
must be overhauled, and resources must be managed. Such disruption courts risks, which multiple cloud providers, according
require buy-in from bosses and, often, boards of directors. to a 2021 survey by The Enterprise
So how can IT leaders, many of whom are well into the work of articulating a multi- Strategy Group commissioned by Dell
cloud strategy, tailor their pitch of as-a-Service IT to their C-suite peers and boards? Technologies.
By showcasing how it helps the business be more flexible and agile, luring top tech Yet as much as the public cloud
talent to drive competitive advantage, and retaining control over corporate assets. All in carries the narrative in the digital world,
the name of achieving the best business outcomes, of course. most CIOs know migrating to the public
cloud is challenging and courts significant
Tip #1: Stress the importance of control to satisfy compliance and security mandates risk. Some proprietary applications are
It wasn’t long ago when CEOs professed to their C-suites and boards of directors that they too expensive to refactor for the public
needed to move to the cloud. CEOs believed the public cloud, with all its attendant multi- cloud and the return on investment
tenancy, would make them more nimble and agile. The cloud would help them roll out for doing so isn’t there. Still other

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