IT executives are finding it more difficult to look outside their window and not wonder at what rate of speed their organization is keeping ahead – or lagging behind – the competition in terms of cloud strategy and utilization. Asking questions is natural. But achieving answers? That requires an actionable plan which unequivocally defines priorities around IT as a Service (ITaaS).
This week 15 customers participated in EMC’s IT Transformation Week event at EMC’s Santa Clara, California-based Executive Briefing Center. The three-day program provided IT executives expert guidance on topics such as how to enable a hybrid cloud in as few as 28 days, steps for a software accelerated approach to IT Transformation, plus in-depth ITaaS and cloud case studies, and a variety of breakout and executive roundtable discussions.
At the heart of the interactive event was EMC’s recently announced IT Transformation Workshop. The objective of the half-day workshop is twofold: get IT executives aligned on their ITaaS priorities; and ensure their application, infrastructure, and operations executives understand their service strategy capabilities based on a survey and competitive benchmarks presented during the course of the workshop.
EMC has helped accelerate more than 15,000 IT transformations for customers, and that expertise is being extended to delivering IT Transformation Workshops globally. Over the last year, EMC has performed more than 100 of these workshops in the Americas and over 20 overseas. Participating customers have ranged from all industry types – financial, healthcare, retail, insurance, technology, state and local government, and more.
Outcomes from the workshops in pilot phase since last year have overwhelmingly led to firm plans and decision-making by participating IT executives. In fact, 84% of completed workshops yielded specific follow-on next steps for customers. EMC is working with customers to schedule nearly 90 IT Transformation Workshops in the coming months.
That level of interest is unsurprising given the accelerating momentum by IT enterprises to establish a hybrid cloud. Last December, 72% of respondents polled at the Gartner Data Center Conference said they would pursue a hybrid cloud computing strategy by 2015, with 21% saying maybe and only 7% saying no.A major appeal of the IT Transformation Workshop is it provides participants with a holistic “bottom-up” look at the current state of their IT and application infrastructure. Once customers learn where they stack against competition with benchmark results and compare with best-in-class peer groups, identifying key priorities to accelerate IT Transformation progress becomes less dart-throwing and more concrete real steps to achieve success. Add-in gap analysis and a transformation report to work from, and you’re ready to hit the accelerator.
IT executives are right to be asking questions and demanding answers around the implications, value, and possibilities surrounding ITaaS and hybrid cloud for their business. The risk of being caught flat-footed with no visibility into your standing in the field, or worse, sitting idle while your competition is setting the pace, is a harrowing high-wire act.
So instead, grab the wheel, chart your course, and don’t look in the rear view when it comes to achieving your goals of moving your business to cloud the right way.