Page 204 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

customers had come to the established manufacturer’s site to
look for the product, but they were using keywords that were
not part of your company’s background or culture. The site
was redesigned to build in references to these keywords and
the process they represent. A new segment of customers had
been found and traffic on the site again increased, pushing its

ability to complete transactions. But this issue had been fore-
seen. Part of the traffic was shunted off to a backup Web site
in a public cloud, where searches could be conducted and
read-only information was dispensed. With a multichannel
approach, the new product launch was a success and your
company learned the value of the cloud.
That’s a rough scenario of how a company met a challenge.

Throughout, it should be clear that it succeeded not because
it was well prepared, but in spite of being ill prepared. It had
a rudimentary internal cloud in place to supply the means
for a flexible organization to launch once the challenge was
clearly defined. It immediately started to make use of a previ-
ously troublesome and disregarded customer feedback loop.
It started putting social networking to work, not just playing
on Facebook. The cloud’s ability to host many forms of col-
laboration allowed the project to move forward quickly.

In any scenario, cloud computing is going to fall short of
solving all problems. Human ingenuity will still be the ulti-
mate requirement in meeting the challenges. But putting in
place the right training, the right tools, and the right platform
for problem solving can make the difference between survival
and going out of business.

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