Page 218 - 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

The scenarios given here are fanciful, but I’m not so sure
that they will be a few years from now. Companies must decide
whether they are going to sit passively and watch a wave of dis-
ruption wash over their operations or harness the power of
the cloud for themselves.

Harnessing the Cloud

A wise manager can invoke one of several strategies to cope
with the impending changes; no single strategy is going to be
right for all companies. But last-minute demands that things
must change is not the right approach. Employees who believe

that they are doing a good job by executing the company’s
long-held tenets need a road map to guide them along the
correct lines of what to do next.
Within any organization, however, there may be two or
three strong performers or a small team that has an interest in
cloud computing. Ask these people to form an informal
group that will draw up a list of ways in which the company is
most likely to be affected by the cloud and another list of
what the company might do in the cloud. At first, this may be

a barren exercise, executed by people who think that their ex-
isting responsibilities give them plenty to do. But it signals to
everyone that the company is interested. It may bring forth
good ideas from the parties who are assigned the responsibil-
ity, as they think about it against the background of what they
do, or from someone unnamed who has his own grasp of what
the cloud can do and sees that the company is interested in

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