5 years ago, only 36% of organisations across the UK adopted cloud – today this number is over a staggering 91%. Marcus Donald People have recently made the move from on-prem to cloud by adopting an all singing all dancing Cloud based PaaS CRM, a very much needed leap from our previous on-premise system. Making the move comes with several benefits including;
• An increased efficiency in our work.
• A reduction in time taken to train junior consultants on internal systems & processes.
• Reporting is now much easier for management and directors.
It has however come at a cost.
By adopting a new cloud based system, the companies’ overheads have increased. Naturally, the monthly subscriptions and add-ons are more expensive compared to those of the on-prem CRM.
This got me thinking….How does the adoption of cloud effect organisation across various sectors?
I have been speaking with a number of individuals, from 3rd Line Engineers to CTO’s, across several sectors including healthcare, financial, transport and managed service providers. Naturally, each had different opinions which I found interesting and wanted to share.
Financial sector organisations tend to have a lot of customer data and this data can be extremely sensitive. The leap into cloud by financial sector companies, from my experience, tends to be a move into a hybrid cloud. This means moving customer sensitive data from on-prem to one Cloud provider (e.g. AWS) and general internal data to a secondary cloud provider (e.g. Azure).
It is worth noting that to reduce the security risk, organisations such as these also keep a huge amount of data on premise and this is all do-able due to amount of money they can invest on projects such as these.Therefore, customers are able to access financial records with more ease through the introduction of online payment methods and online banking.
When speaking with individuals in the healthcare industry I found a much different approach. Similar to the financial industry, healthcare sector organisations have both customer sensitive and general data which can be stored either on premise, on one cloud provider or across a hybrid cloud environment. This is dependent on the organisation’s internal security processes and how much money they are willing to invest in the cloud.
The difference however is that these organisations are governed by Big Brother (the NHS). The NHS have a huge say on how data can be stored and shared by these organisations causing a delay in Cloud adoption.
I have found the main issue when looking to adopt cloud is not the cost of the move, nor the security aspect – it is more so the way in which an individual’s health data is stored and how organisations across the healthcare sector will come together to create a profile for this data.
At the moment, many organisations in the healthcare industry still have a traditional infrastructure and maintain and monitor their own datacentres. An organisation who stores eye scans can have these images in a DC based in London and another company storing brains scans, of the same individual, can have these images in a separate DC. The issue therefore is when putting this data into Cloud, how do we create a profile so that one individual’s data is not separated but actually made into a profile which is accessible by doctors across all departments in the hospitals.
When speaking with an individual in the transport sector, it was clear that the adoption of cloud was a huge benefit. Not only has the organisation become more collaborative in their way of work but it also meant they can manage their costs more efficiently. As a result, they can budget for the next 12 months more accurately.
It is worth noting that by adopting cloud, the Infrastructure & Cloud team has increased. Where there was previously a team of 20 individuals 4 years ago, all working with similar skillsets on traditional infrastructure, they now have a team of up to 50, each providing a much more niche skillset, being specialists in their own area. This team is still increasing in size.
To summarise…
It is clear that there are both pros and cons of adopting cloud and these are dependent on the sector you work in, how your organisation is governed and the amount of money the organisation is willing to spend on those projects.
The main pros include an increased efficiency within the IT Infrastructure, a more agile working environment and an increased awareness of spending within the IT department. Disadvantages of adopting cloud include the initial cost of subscriptions and staff with more advanced skillsets, the time taken to plan and implement the changes and if applicable, how other organisations will react to your new IaaS and PaaS in the cloud.
I would like to thank all the individuals I have spoken with regarding this project and am in a continuous bid to learn about the cloud environments. I welcome any comments or feedback on this post. Feel free to contact me directly at ojennings@marcusdonald.com or call me on 0203 328 0400.
