Focus Group Impact
Focus group discussions enabled us to dig even deeper into the day-to-day experiences of both leaders and laggards . The leaders focus group had many obvious distinctions : participants viewed the cloud as a strategic business initiative with clear top-line revenue impact . They were more adept at automation , relying on fewer manual processes , and exceled with managing cost and forecasting “ what-if ” scenarios .
However , like the laggards , though to a lesser extent , they struggled to articulate specific business metrics for measuring the success of their cloud program . Their attempts to describe the value which cloud delivers focused myopically on total cost of ownership ( TCO ) rather than return on investment ( ROI ). A service admin in the technology industry illustrated this point :
" By reducing capital expenditures you can have a short-term increase in revenue . Then by learning to use your tool sets effectively , you can improve operational procedures ."
In his comment , an executive director of global planning in the retail industry underscored the fact that business success metrics are still not well defined :
" We ’ re looking at monthly KPIs . How are we doing against our plan , how are we doing against prior year ?"
We ’ ve taken this into account in the final section , which recommends developing KPIs and creating specific success metrics that establish a clear connection to business impact .
The Operations
Once it became clear that certain organizations were getting a higher ROI from their cloud deployments ( more on that in the next section ), the goal was to uncover the tactics behind these superior results . The study revealed major differences in visibility , efficiency and control .
Where Laggards Struggle
Laggards are businesses that don ’ t see superior results from their cloud deployments . There are a few areas where they miss the mark . In general , they don ’ t take advantage of different cloud pricing strategies and options . As one focus group participant puts it :
74 | THE DOPPLER | SPRING 2018