Cloud Computing - Is Business Agility Important?

According to CIO magazine, "Business agility, not cost savings, is the leading reason U.S. companies are interested in cloud computing, according to a survey of 500 senior-level IT and business-unit managers Sand Hill released in March." What an interesting concept! It's about business agility...which gets to the core of why IT exists in the first place, right? I mean, whoever went into business with the goal of having an efficient, effective IT department? That's closely akin to the idea that the goal of business is to employ people. No, the goal of business (at least one that intends to stay in business) is to make a profit. And businesses make profits through service. Those businesses that can serve their customers the best, over a protracted period of time, are typically the most profitable. They understand that customers, especially today, have many options, and that loyalty is something that is won everyday. It's not as the grumpy old guy told his wife, "I told you I loved you when we got married 30 years ago..." - thinking that was it. No, it is about a long-term relationship with your customers. And to do this effectively, the bulk of your organizational efforts need to be focused on delivering those solutions. Resources and energy wasted because of bloated, slow and potentially bureaucratically inflated systems and processes that actually inhibit the main objective represent an opportunity cost of doing business that is just not acceptable - particularly when those precious resources are strained as they are today.

Cloud computing may just be the solution to this craggy dilemma. For the first time in years, business leaders are getting a glimpse of how they can tame the technology gorilla. And finally giving rise to the opportunity for IT leaders themselves to focus on adding true value to their own (internal) customers, not just being a cost center focused on duct-taping the multitudinous legacy systems and applications together. According to the National Institute of Standards and Testing (NIST), cloud computing is defined as:

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

The NIST goes on to identify the five key characteristics of cloud computing as:

• on-demand self service, which allows business units to get the computing resources they need without having to go through IT for equipment.


• broad network access, which enables applications to be built in ways that align with how businesses operate today - mobile, multi-device, etc.


• resource pooling, which allows for pooling of computing resources to serve multiple consumers.


• rapid elasticity, which allows for quick scalability or downsizing of resources depending on demand.


• measured service, which means that business units only pay for the computational resources they use.

Cloud computing represents the future of business empowerment - and isn't that what technology is supposed to do in the first place? Leave the IT stuff to the companies with core competencies in those areas, and the economies of scale to manage it effectively. More functionality in more hands on more devices all at less cost. Cloud computing sets the business free to focus on its absolute core mission - serving its customers better than anyone else.

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