10 steps to getting maximum value from your multi-cloud estate

Enterprises are expanding their cloud estates to reach their business goals. On average, enterprises are using 2.8 public and 2.7 private clouds. However, there is much debate about how many are getting the business value they expected from this investment.

To advance and build on multi-cloud benefits, you need to address three key areas: planning, execution, and measurement. This will require an ongoing cloud maturity roadmap that aligns with your business capabilities, skills, and the ability to execute with metrics to ensure it achieves the desired goals. You will need to look beyond multi-cloud as a cost-saving exercise and see it as a continuous mechanism for business value creation.

Many enterprises have applications spread across multiple platforms, including on-premises, remote offices, software-as-a-service, hyperscaler clouds, and enterprise clouds. This creates complexity and makes visibility difficult.

Don’t run before you can walk

To get the full benefits of cloud technologies such as on-demand and Kubernetes, enterprises need to go cloud-native. Still, regardless of the advances and services emerging, you may not enjoy the benefits if you don’t have a full view of your cloud estate and the value it is bringing to the business.

Cloud-native frameworks and cloud-native services are increasingly proving their applicability and relevance for both traditional enterprise use cases and new digital initiatives, according to IDC. But the analyst firm warns that modernisation exercises need to be planned carefully because of skillset and tooling limitations. Again, this highlights the importance of an ongoing robust cloud strategy.

Gartner maintains that more than 85% of organizations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025 and will not be able to execute their digital strategies without adopting cloud-native architectures and technologies.

Achieving this within the next three years will be a tall order for many. Why? Because many are just starting their journey and find the complexity of a multi-cloud estate challenging. In contrast, others have adopted multi-cloud more by accident than game plan and fail to see any significant return on their investment. This has slowed down transformation plans.

Going cloud-native will touch every part of your enterprise. New skills, practices, and mindsets are required. Internal teams will need to adopt cross-functional ways of working that ensure the software is iterated continuously.

The move to cloud-native will never be quick or easy. It is essential you get your cloud estate in order and then start small, enabling you to iron out any issues early in the cycle. When moving to cloud-native, for example, all the components of an application must work effectively with legacy and cloud technologies, or you could run into some significant challenges.

Driving cloud value

Cloud is an essential ingredient in digital transformation, but enterprises have learned that simply adopting cloud will not result in sizeable revenue gains. Integrating processes and capabilities to drive interoperability and intelligence is essential to getting value from the cloud.

Getting maximum value from your cloud estate requires a different skillset from traditional legacy solutions. Because of its fluid and dynamic nature, multi-cloud requires continuous consumption, performance, and cost management.

Value from multi-cloud comes with an ongoing commitment that sees business and IT working together to utilise the technology as a change agent for a connected future.

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By 2024, the majority of legacy applications will receive some modernization investment, with cloud services used by 65% of the applications to extend functionality or replace inefficient code.

IDC Futurescape cloud predictions 2022

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Effective cloud usage can improve application development and maintenance productivity by 38% and infrastructure cost efficiency by 29% for migrated applications.

McKinsey Cloud’s trillion dollar price is up for grabs

Here are ten tips to help you get the value you want from multi-cloud

1. Define what matters in terms of return on investment (ROI)
   Business goals, not technology, should come first. Identify the business value your enterprise is looking to achieve by adopting a multi-cloud strategy and building cloud business cases around this framework. These may include reduced downtime, greater productivity, or accelerated innovation. This is all part of how business fits into the digital transformation puzzle.
2. Define cloud benefits on customer experience
   Cloud adoption can significantly enhance the customer experience by speeding up response times, product development, and power dynamic decision-making. You must define the core capabilities to deliver on these from the outset.
3. Make sure there is an economic and/or business case for cloud

Not all applications will benefit from cloud. You need to define which applications will help reach your enterprise’s business outcomes and make an economic case for each.

4. Be clear about your objectives from the start
   Different enterprises will have different reasons for going down the multi-cloud route. What is key is that you and your enterprise are clear about the objectives you are pursuing to achieve business outcomes and the changes in the operational approach required. This could require upskilling IT teams, for example.
5. Don’t treat multi-cloud as a tick box exercise
   There is far more to multi-cloud than simply migration. It is a dynamic and ongoing process. A cloud strategy must come with a continuous, systematic framework for delivering and measuring business value today, tomorrow, and into the future.
6. Continuous app improvement
   To ensure that you will get the performance you want from applications and services, pilot and test them first. This way, you get a picture of the business results you can expect. By migrating in phases, you limit any downtime or previously unforeseen migration issues.
7. Embrace a new way of thinking
   Central to cloud value is realising that the cloud requires a cultural shift to deliver new products, services, and experiences quickly, efficiently, and seamlessly. Applying traditional processes and structures to the cloud will only restrict its capabilities. For example, operating in the cloud, especially when it comes to cloud-native, requires an experimental way of thinking.
8. Always look to improve
   Your multi-cloud estate is always open to improvement. Make sure you can identify which cloud services are delivering on business value and where enhancements can be made. Examine where you can simplify processes and standardise on common tools, for example.
9. Improve agility and scalability with a cloud-native way of working
   Cloud-native brings with it the potential for significant business value that enterprises previously had not planned for. This will be a learning curve for your organisation. The development cycle, for example, is much faster than legacy applications due to its enhanced automation capabilities. It is also much quicker to scale up services and get ahead of the competition. But to get business value, you must commit to the long haul. It is advisable to start small and choose the right applications.
10. Set up a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) to drive business strategy.
    A CCoE is designed to identify and understand business needs to achieve outcomes when it comes to cloud deployment in your enterprise. This includes exploring cloud options and fitting them to business requirements. The CCoE is ultimately responsible for transforming the business via the cloud. To be successful, the team tasked with the responsibility of creating this framework should include representatives from business as well as IT managers, operations managers, systems architects, and development and network architects, for example.

Cloud is the foundation for creating new ways of doing business

Cloud is a key enabler to business value creation. Yet, many enterprises are still finding it difficult to harness the power of the cloud to transform, innovate and launch new business models. You must reimagine your business through a cloud lens to gain successful outcomes from multi-cloud, or you may end up in a ‘cloud quagmire.’