The paths to cloud computing are not all the same. Although many enterprises aggressively use cloud computing to change how they do business, others are just trying to save 20 or 30 percent in ops costs.
When it coes to how you’ll use the cloud, ask what your cloud spirit animal is. Are you a lion that is aggressively working to increase your share of the market? Are you a zebra hoping that a lion won’t take you out? Are you a groundhog that lives in a den where not much changes, and you like it that way?
Cloud lions are spending money on cloud computing to either to disrupt their market and gain more share looking to ultimately take out their competition. Cloud zebras are just trying to save a few ops dollars, support the status quo, and stay safe. Cloud groundhogs have no plans to go to the cloud and hope that the hype around cloud computing goes away so their boss will stop asking about it.
The cloud groundhogs won’t see any value; in fact, they may reduce their value by ignoring cloud. Cloud lions will use the cloud’s speed to market and agility to fail fast and figure out new angles to innovate in their marketplace for major ROI, such as an automated customer experience or predictive analytics to get an inside track—and thus eat the zebras. Of course, the zebras won’t use cloud beyond some ops savings, and many won’t ultimately escape the lions even if they delay a little when they get eaten.
So, whether you’re using cloud computing isn’t the core question to ask, but how you’re using cloud computing in the business. So, what’s your cloud spirit animal? More important, what should it be?