November 29th, 2017

Advancing your cloud journey

Karina Homme
Senior Director

According to a survey of Federal CIOs from the International Data Corporation, [1]IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Federal Civilian Agencies in the United States, 2017, 86.4% of respondents are operating beneath the highest stage of cloud maturity. These respondents represent technology decision makers across 104 federal civilian agencies. In the survey, IDC establishes a series of stages in cloud maturity, with “optimization” representing the last stage, where agencies are achieving the most significant value with their cloud investments, and “ad hoc’ representing the first stage.

What’s most striking about the survey is that the first stage, “ad hoc,” seems to present the largest hurdle for agencies on the path to cloud adoption.

The ad hoc stage of cloud migration is characterized as a time of agency experimentation with the cloud. Individuals are learning how it works, and line-of-business teams are understanding its utility. IT teams are still operating behind the scenes, figuring out their approaches to security, information management, and governance.

Advancing Past the ‘Ad Hoc’ Stage

The key to advancing through the ad hoc stage of cloud development is open communication (1) across agency departments and (2) within IT organizations. An inability to communicate is one of the most significant barriers of moving past this first stage of cloud migration.

Traditional IT organizations are highly siloed, and communication doesn’t travel well. There are employees that work in networking, storage, network identity, and application owners; for an agency to be truly cloud-based, all departments need to work together, communicate with each other, and understand their role in this new migration.

By looking left to right across the agency, CIOs can establish a cloud-first vision and mirror that vision both across the agency and within the IT organization. By noticing what works in each department, and using those successes as a benchmark to roll out your cloud migration strategy, you can form a more cohesive path toward digitally transforming your agency with cloud capabilities.

Learn More About Moving Cloud Maturity Forward

To learn more about moving your organization’s cloud maturity forward, and how to advance your cloud journey, download the IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Federal Civilian Agencies in the United States, 2017 report today.

[1] IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Federal Civilian Agencies in the United States, 2017, June 2017 | Doc #US40668816

Author

Karina Homme
Senior Director

As senior director for Microsoft Azure Government, Karina is the federal market lead and liaison between the US Federal Ecosystem & Microsoft Azure Engineering. She works closely with a wide range of executive stakeholders to understand US government needs, remove cloud adoption blockers and ensure Microsoft’s Government Cloud roadmap meets agency missions. As an advocate for government, Karina supports cloud adoption in federal civilian agencies.

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