The Vacuum of
Cloud Adoption Leaders
Robert Christiansen
One thing is clear - cloud adoption is about leadership.
The technology works. AWS, Azure, and Google will own this market. How-
ever, there is a vacuum of cloud leadership in the enterprise. The change
required in large IT organizations is simply a matter of people. They do not
know what to do, how to change, or what change is needed. It is the perfect
storm and the forward thinking CIOs will race to reinvent themselves as the
evangelists of change. Here’s the good news, the vacuum of cloud leaders is
evident - and it is a great opportunity for those who know how to pivot.
Great change forges great leaders. They are the coaches who can inspire and
motivate teams to venture into the darkness with low risk to reputation and
capital. They are the creators of value and influencers of new markets. They
build new careers for their teams and for themselves.
Yet, we look to the dugout and the benches are empty.
The perfect storm of opportunity is upon us. Transformation of enterprise IT
is low risk and high return. We can iterate on the solutions instead of making
mass wholesale change. Learning is a critical part of the game and those who
want to take the field will be the leaders.
Consider the following leadership opportunities:
The Champion of Rapid Innovation
The business units are suffocating under the crushing weight of central IT pro-
cesses. But there are options. They turn to public cloud for relief. The savvy
cloud leader knows that they are not the only game in town and accept this
fact. Bringing rapid innovative solutions is a gift to the business units, that will
welcome the change with open arms. The champion of rapid innovation builds
the framework for the business units to safely play.
70 | THE DOPPLER | SPRING 2017