Risk + Reward
A frustration of many a technology executive is the no-win proposition of “doing more with less.” Reality tells us that the productivity curve does not rise unlimited. At some point, we have to do less with less, and simply hope we’ve chosen the right things to give up.
Since our formation, Astadia has seen Cloud technologies as a way to reallocate finite internal people and assets to do the right things when faced with tightening budgets, fixed headcount, and the myriad contributions technology leaders must deliver in challenging times.
After thousands of consulting and development projects using Cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) technologies, we’ve developed a point of view about how these tools can help you help your company mitigate risk in these areas:
Fiscal risk
Buying enterprise systems means big money going out the door. Expenditures that strike terror into the hearts of CFOs. Make-or-break career bets. It’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds. MORE
Security risk
From deflecting malicious attacks to physically securing access to servers to failover strategies in case of natural disaster or acts of terrorism. Congratulations, you are the chief executive in charge of defending a war zone. MORE
Data risk
A leading cause of failure for any major technology system: data quality. Duplicate records. Old or incomplete data. The system often gets blamed for what its users have done to their own data, whether by ignorance or neglect. Guess what? Their problems are your problems if the system doesn’t work. MORE
Business process risk
Cloud technologies are often deceptively easy to tweak. The real work is determining how to tweak them to match (and even improve) your business processes.Your projected ROI disintegrates when business processes change and the enterprise architecture is unable to change with it. This can occur quickly without proper monitoring of implemented systems.
The human factor also intrudes: not everybody likes change. And a new system means change. That's why end user adoption is top of mind with many CIOs today. MORE
Integration risk
Integrating legacy systems with new technologies -- and maintaining those integrations through the upgrade cycle -- has never been a job for cowards. As it turns out, there's more to system integration than hooking things up... MORE