IT Evoloution - Progression towards Cloud Computing (Part I)

(First part of a series of blogs to explore IT evolution and movement towards cloud computing)
Here is my take on how IT can embrace and benefit from cloud computing. Before going into the details on cloud computing, just want to set the stage by providing a very high level overview on scope of IT itself. Traditionally, the role of IT is to provide underlying technology infrastructure to execute the organization's operating model. For this, IT would be responsible to build the underlying infrastructure for -

• Organization's data, network and voice requirements
• Applications implementing business processes
• Client devices and user productivity tools that enable users to perform their job efficiently
  

Additionally IT is also responsible for protecting the organization's information resources. The image below shows the traditional scope of IT at a very high level.




 Notice all the supporting infrastructure that IT has to maintain. Business engagement is mostly at Applications and user experience level (client devices and productivity tools like office tools, email, collaboration tools, IM etc.). So, what is the issue with this picture?




Business Engagement in this model is mostly tactical, as IT is spending most of the resources (70-90%, according to some studies) on maintaining the infrastructure and cannot involve strategically with the business. IT is preoccupied with "keeping the lights on".

Businesses have to adapt quickly to changing market, competition and other external forces. For this, the underlying business processes may have to change. As most of these processes are implemented by IT applications, the expectation from business partners is for IT to be agile.Added to this, rapidly changing technology also takes IT resources to update the infrastructure.

Over the years IT has been moving in the direction to meet business expectations, Enterprise Architecture, Technology standardization, Governance, PMO etc., are all steps towards making IT more agile. Additionaly, IT is also looking to free up resources, by offloading much of mundane tasks to specialized service providers.
In the next part, I will expand on outsourcing and later cloud computing. In the final part, I look at how IT is a organization can benefit and involve more strategically with business.