The following blog post was written by Jason Hardy.

How business is transacted is changing and IT is under pressure to update enterprise infrastructure to support these new demands. Internally, associates want to be able to work anytime, anywhere and from any device in a seamless manner. Externally clients, prospects and partners are asking for access to unprecedented amounts of information. If IT doesn’t support these demands, others will and this translates to associate turnover and lost business opportunities.

The cost of delivering on these demands can be high so companies need to look at options to deliver IT that supports these business needs as cost effectively as possible. By turning to the cloud, enterprises can take advantage of the huge investments made by cloud service providers while making much smaller investments internally. By taking an IT modernization approach, it’s possible to deliver an unprecedented level of service while reducing operational expenses.

Let’s face it, IT makes the enterprise “go around” and this has never been truer than it is today. How work is done is changing and there is an expectation that we can use any device to work anytime, anywhere. With this around the clock and around the world thinking, IT performance and availability is viewed differently than it was in the past. Remember the days when scheduled downtime was just an acceptable practice? The incremental cost of round the clock operations and “no scheduled downtime” made it cost prohibitive to deliver anytime anywhere access to resources.

While there is no question that IT is critical to the business, the traditionally high operating expense of IT doesn’t have to be part of the equation. The cloud is changing how we deliver IT and while we still want to set the IT strategy many are realizing they don’t need or want to operate and manage the infrastructure. So how do you do both? The key to doing this lies in changing how you think about infrastructure and operations.

Create new levels of efficiency in your operations
A move to the cloud means you are no longer focused on the day to day “keep the lights on” activities commonly associated with managing infrastructure. By eliminating these tasks, it frees budget and staff to focus on developing functionality and applications that can differentiate your enterprise, allowing IT to drive real business results.

The very nature of the cloud, creates operational efficiencies that would be very difficult, if not impossible to replicate in an on premises environment. Things like:

• Pay for what you use with automation and scripts designed to flex the infrastructure to meet the peaks and valleys of your business needs.
• Standardized SKUs that allow you to quickly and easily turn up new resources without having to spec and test them for performance and compatibility.
• Disaster recovery that is built in and automatically expands and contracts as your usage changes.
• Built in intelligence that monitors the health of the system.

Operationalizing the cloud requires a change in your approach compared to traditional IT operations. These operational changes go hand in hand with human changes. Guiding and supporting employees in new roles and new ways of working is as important to your success as any technological change you make. Get technology, process and people right and you’ll no longer tend the hardware, so you’ll have more time and resources for turning IT into a competitive asset.

Leverage experience to increase your odds of success
If you want to learn more about our 6 Key Elements of Cloud success, click over to our CIO Guide to Cloud Transformation, or check back on my Avanade Insights blog series where I continue to discuss important cloud issues.