14 signs your cloud journey may be off track
Change Request, contract variation, scope change – do these words leave you with a sense of dread? Do your IT partners have a glint in their eye when you start to discuss new requirements? If you’re making a move to cloud but still need to pay for yet another variation invoice, then chances are you’re not taking full advantage of your cloud strategy. In this article, we discuss how to reset your relationship with your suppliers and leave change requests behind.
Engaging partners to supply services to your organisation is a standard part of the IT toolkit. In the traditional IT world, engagement generally starts with a review of the market. This quite often takes the form of an RFI – Request for Information. Then, this is followed by an RFP – Request for Proposal - and finishing with an RFQ – Request for Quote. The key characteristic of the RFI/RFP/RFQ processes is that, in the traditional IT world, the IT organisation will engage the partner to build and then possibly operate the service on behalf of the organisation for an agreed, upfront price.
The need for a product development model
In previous articles, we have discussed how many IT organisations hide the value proposition of cloud services behind traditional IT processes and tools. We have learned we can address this problem by exposing the self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use nature of cloud to the rest of the organisation by implementing a well-formed Cloud Operating Model. This starts with the creation of Product teams and includes replacing your traditional IT project model with a product development model, adding product management talent, properly incentivising your DevOps teams, and using cloud business cases that fund feature development.
However, if you’re still paying vendors for change requests, then something is not quite right with your Operating Model. The most likely reason? You’re still engaging your vendors under the traditional IT model; you have requested proposals; you have obtained quotes and you are now working with your preferred supplier who will deliver exactly to the agreed specifications – and no more. Incidentally, vendors have become good at gaming this engagement model, specifically by underquoting to win the business in the not unreasonable expectation that customers will pay for variations to account for unforeseen issues – change requests.
A case for integration
To end change requests and the pain that comes with requesting more funding, you need to integrate your vendor engagement model into your Cloud Operating Model; just as you expect your own Product teams to deliver on-demand, self-serve, per-use services you should expect the same from your IT vendors.
In other words, rather than RFIs, your teams should be able to perform a Google search and learn everything there is to know about vendor services. Rather than RFPs, your team should be able to sign up to potential vendor services and test them immediately. Rather than RFQs, your team should be able to estimate costs by calculating expected usage against the vendor’s consumption-based pricing model.
Once engaged with the vendor, if the service does not quite match your requirements, rather than make costly change requests, you should be able to make feature requests or submit bug reports. You should expect your vendor to incorporate feature updates or bug fixes into the per-use cost of the service - not an add-on cost.
The many flavours of vendor services
Vendor services come in different flavours, IaaS, PaaS, iPaaS, SaaS and they all share the same cloud attributes: self-serve, on-demand & pay-per-use. To this list, we can add one more: evergreen – the features of the service are always up to date and the cost for any new feature or fix is incorporated into the pay-per-use price.
By choosing IT vendors that offer a self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use (and evergreen!) service, you can rid your organisation of costly change requests and continue to optimise your Cloud Operating Model. At DigiRen, we have years of experience building cloud solutions. We specialise in building Cloud Operating Models that enable businesses to take advantage of their cloud investment. Choosing the right cloud-based IT vendors to complement your Cloud Operating Model requires time and effort, so if you would like our help or want to learn more, please contact us at solutions@digiren.com.au and follow us on LinkedIn.