4 Signs Your Company Needs a Cloud Center of Excellence

While a great deal of early adopters are using cloud computing to its full potential, plenty of organizations are also struggling with leveraging the new systems correctly, creating a whole slew of organization-wide issues. This is where a cloud center of excellence (CCoE) comes into play. It’s a team composed of experts tasked with coordinating and managing cloud-based tasks and practices within an organization.Establishing CCoE can ensure companies use the cloud more efficiently and effectively, providing a well-needed push toward innovation and growth. Can your business improve its technological agility this way? Here are the signs you should give this governance model a try.

Lost in the Cloud? Your Strategy Needs a Rescue

In theory, cloud computing should allow all organizations to centralize their data, leading to enhanced security and collaboration across different sectors.

Unfortunately, many companies are failing to achieve this cloud-based utopia and are experiencing major bottlenecks instead.

For example, they lack control over their cloud computing resources, resulting in unsanctioned proliferation of different cloud instances across their organization. In addition, cloud usage may vary across departments, which only leads to inconsistent results.

Moreover, a lack of governance opens your company up to horrifying security and compliance vulnerabilities. For instance, shadow IT is becoming an increasing concern for companies running their business out of the cloud. Numerous IT professionals report daily freakouts dealing with unauthorized devices gaining access to valuable company data.

While the difficulties above can slow innovation and increase your overall security risk, the lack of a clear strategy can also cause unnecessary expenses for the organization with no semblance of a positive ROI.

A company could be using applications or infrastructure that isn’t cloud-native, leading to an unproductive operation and bottlenecks caused by compatibility issues. This is very common as organizations have invested a large amount of resources for cloud migration and are now wrestling with securing assets for further transformation and modernization.

With CCoE, a team of experts is in charge of managing all cloud-related matters, including implementation of best practices and creating a well-defined cloud strategy. Through this data-oriented approach, your company can not only improve its efficiency but also enhance overall security by establishing compliant practices. As CCoE creates and articulates a standard across the company, as well as sets up the most efficient workflows in a wide variety of areas, it can push your organization in the right direction. Ultimately, this allows you to fully leverage the advantages of cloud computing while also sidestepping common pitfalls stemming from poor planning.

The Skills Gap is Real: Bridge It to Master the Cloud

As cloud services become more widespread, there’s a noticeable lack of skilled professionals with expertise in cloud computing.

Since there’s also a gap between theoretical knowledge and hands-on expertise in building a solid cloud-based architecture, it’s common for companies to end up with suboptimal cloud configurations.

Lack of a clear approach and standardization can lead to knowledge silos where different individuals, teams, or whole departments are using cloud resources without any adherence to established company practices. This can result in inefficiencies, mistakes, compliance issues, delays in launching products, and increased costs. To make matters worse, it may also undermine your overall scalability and lead to missed opportunities.

Implementing a CCoE allows organizations to establish company-specific training requirements in order to facilitate upskilling throughout their ranks.

With a strict governance framework, you can also eliminate siloing while at the same time allowing different teams within your organization to collaborate on solutions with more efficiency. Because a CCoE can serve as a knowledge hub for all the areas of your cloud initiative, it’s conducive to a more optimal cloud configuration, thus providing a unique opportunity to optimize your internal resources.

Transformation Stalled? CCoE Will Chart Your Course

Successful businesses often place a large value on scalability that allows them to accurately meet changing demands. This is exactly why cloud computing is so powerful - it empowers organizations to address new challenges by scaling up or down whenever the need arises.

However, maximizing the value of cloud investments and scaling up can only happen with organizations that have a strategic roadmap in place that everyone adheres to - upper management included.

By leveraging CCoE, you allow a group of experts to decide how to best approach the matter at hand by implementing tools and standards that aid you in the process of transformation.

Moreover, organizations often face unique challenges when scaling up or undergoing any type of cloud transformation. As such, CCoE experts can inform upper management on the necessary steps in the transformation process, ensuring everyone is on the same page in the overarching cloud-based journey.

This ultimately promotes a cloud-centric approach across the company and eliminates the dreaded decision paralysis, perfectly aligning business objectives with your company’s cloud initiative.

Outsmart the Competition: Innovation Needs a CCoE

The business world is notoriously confusing - it's a sprint while at the same time being a marathon. As some businesses are stuck even after migrating to the cloud and wasting away valuable resources to maintain legacy systems, their competitors are rapidly advancing by leveraging the latest cloud-powered tools.

Considering innovation is the driving force behind sales and business success, your company can’t afford to slow down in such a rapidly changing environment. To avoid falling behind and discovering new revenue streams, you should contemplate a CCoE approach. Why?

A CCoE leads to a culture where technological advancement and continual learning are prioritized heavily. In turn, this leads to an unprecedented amount of free experimentation and faster testing. Along with identifying emerging cloud solutions, such a company culture drives innovation, positioning you as a de facto leader in your respective industry.

Usher In a New Era of Growth

No matter the size of your business or the stage in your cloud journey, a CCoE is the right approach if you want to reap the full benefits of cloud computing. Besides helping avoid common pitfalls of operating in the cloud, a CCoE approach can also drive innovation and transform how your company operates on a technical level - which is why you migrated to the cloud in the first place, right?A CCoE is there to help you get back on track with your initial plans, making it an essential step you’ll have to take sooner rather than later.

About Me

I'm Sarim Zafar, a cloud expert passionate about supporting your growth to solve real business challenges and streamline your operations. My platform-agnostic approach means I find the right solutions for your unique needs.