Cloud Computing Success for Services Businesses

1. Speed of delivery is significantly higher in the cloud. This sounds like an advantage—and make no mistake, it is—but with this speed comes responsibility. The entire organization should be ready to commit to making the transition to the new technology in a matter of weeks, not months or years as is typical of on-premise deployment. Even global rollouts of a complete ERP overhaul can be done in barely more than one fiscal quarter.

People have been conditioned to expect long lulls in the rollout process, where months can go by while infrastructure work goes on in the background and they themselves have several weeks to slowly transition from one system to another when the go-live date finally arrives. In the cloud, those delays disappear. Cloud solutions require no visits to refresh local servers and desktops with new software, and their interconnected, extensible nature can shorten the time necessary to run legacy systems in parallel with the new solution.

If the entire business is not prepared to commit to an accelerated implementation schedule, then the organizational benefits will be delayed. Field professionals as well as support and administrative groups must all be willing to embrace a culture of rapid change.

2. Change management is even more important in cloud implementations. This is a lesson many have learned the hard way over the past decade of the cloud computing revolution. Because of their lengthy, hands-on implementation cycles, conventional software projects create their own face-to-face opportunities to build consensus and lay the cultural underpinnings for a successful transition. When new server racks are delivered and DBAs are milling about every location in the enterprise, it is impossible not to notice that change is coming. In the cloud, change management must be undertaken with deliberate intent, because so much of the implementation and rollout can be managed centrally or remotely. There is no built-in delay of several months to gradually build consensus while heavy infrastructure work goes on in the background.

Without a change management plan, the first time a remote or international office hears about the transition could be when the trainers show up at the front door. That is a recipe for pushback and disaster, and puts the training team in the awkward position of having to defend the change instead of focusing on the successful adoption of the new business processes.

Be certain that major stakeholders are informed and involved early and often—and that means having an implementation team or partner which can consolidate the input of a wide audience. Early training should be part of this communication strategy. One highly successful approach we have adopted is to encourage a virtual conference room pilot project, using collaborative technologies to engage stakeholders around the world in the requirements, prototyping, and customization phases of the project. Cloud delivery means that the entire global organization can immediately see the fruits of their input, and recognize how the new solution will better meet their needs.

3. The cloud can centralize your services business and enhance knowledge management. This may seem counter-intuitive because the cloud also enhances mobility and the power of a virtual workforce. But it also has the power to reverse the continental drift that has afflicted so many services businesses over the past decades by making it much easier to deliver services remotely to clients. Instead of the old model where each client obligates at least one consultant to get on a plane and individually design and deliver services, the cloud enables practices to operate more centrally, and deliver services just as effectively, without setting foot on a plane.

Instead of a loose affiliation of road warriors, the services culture can become more tribal and close-knit. This significantly enhances the potential for services professionals to collaborate, and bolsters institutional knowledge. Instead of calling field professionals "home" for quarterly or annual knowledge management data dumps, the process is much more organic, natural, and effective. The tribal organization also reduces wear-and-tear on professionals and eliminates the inefficiencies of lost time in transit.

Time is the most valuable commodity to services organizations. With the right planning, moving to the cloud can unlock valuable hours—the months that would normally be lost to on-premise systems work, and the hours every week burned up in airports and airplanes. The result is a more efficient and productive professional workforce, delivered faster and more cheaply than any on-premise or VPN-based solution can. For the implementation partner, the cloud means more efficient projects, less field work, and more time available to engage in requirements-gathering and customization instead of wrestling with servers and software upgrades.

Tim Dilley is the Executive Vice President, Worldwide Services and Chief Customer Officer, NetSuite