Cloud strategy misalignment leads some workloads back on-prem

Dive Brief:

Companies are still struggling to bring cloud investments in line with business goals even after migration efforts conclude, according to a recent HCLTech report. The tech company had FT Longitude survey 500 business and IT leaders in March.
When organizations neglect to tie cloud deployments to business outcomes, migrations fail to return measurable value and workloads may end up back on-prem, the report found. Nearly one-quarter of respondents said their organization will repatriate apps and workloads to traditional data centers in the next three years.
Nearly three quarters of respondents said their organization is only just beginning to unlock the potential of cloud, and nearly one-third of respondents acknowledged poor alignment between business and IT departments hinders progress.

Dive Insight:

Cloud isn’t a panacea for all that ails IT. Scalable infrastructure, on-demand compute and a menu of additional tools and services stoked enterprise appetite for the technology. Most executives are pleased with the results.

Indeed, 9 in 10 respondents said cloud was pivotal in enabling rapid responses to critical business events, including cyberattacks, geopolitical instability and changes in customer preferences. More than three-quarters credited cloud with helping their company mitigate supply chain disruptions and minimizing the impact of inflation.

Yet, as cloud matures, a gap has emerged between what organizations believe the technology is capable of and the impact deployments have had on their business.

Business and technology leaders alike have learned that returns on cloud investments are not automatic — success in cloud is predicated on integrating business and technology strategies.

More than half of respondents, 59%, acknowledged that senior leaders in their organization don’t appreciate the degree to which business strategy drives successful cloud journeys, and 56% said senior leaders don’t take enough interest in cloud technologies.

The disconnect is reflected in a breach between IT and business leader perception. While more than 9 in 10 IT leaders surveyed said knowledge of cloud capabilities existed throughout their organization, fewer than 4 in 5 business leaders agreed.

Misalignments among organizational leaders are exacerbated by the complexities of controlling cost in an on-demand tech ecosystem. Inefficiencies pile up when companies leave existing cloud credits unused as new migrations commence.

Difficulty sourcing cloud technicians and engineering talent amid the migration rush has left some companies pining for the days of the trusty on-prem data center.

“Repatriation usually happens as a result of workloads being migrated or lifted and shifted to the cloud without optimizing them,” Mike Kail, CTO at cloud software company PrimaryIO, said in the report. “You have to optimize your applications and workloads to get the full benefit [of cloud].”