The public cloud is playing a key enabling role for CIOs in the acceleration and delivery of successful digital business outcomes. Greater agility/flexibility is the top reason for transitioning to the public cloud. The use of the cloud is about business value, obtaining flexibility and agility, and reducing or eliminating the need to maintain and support hardware and software.
When measuring the direct impact of the cloud on a specific business area, or in its strategic value to your organization as a whole, leaders must correlate cloud performance metrics with specific business metrics to ensure alignment and value. However, a strategic assessment of cloud value must focus on longer-term improvements to agility, competitive leverage and ability to innovate.
To become more digitally innovative, organizations must be able to increase the pace and quality of their research and development (R&D), as well as how well they produce results. The effect of cloud adoption on R&D can be measured in lower startup costs for new experiments. In addition, less time will be spent on test configuration and management, and in the “digital leverage” an organization can sometimes obtain from using a cloud provider’s advanced platform services, e.g., artificial intelligence and machine learning. The business value of these services must then be measured in the quality and pace of new product introduction.