Cloud Migration Is A Bankable Move, So Why Are Financial Firms Still Delaying?

Organizations across industries are well aware that the next big strategic move in advancing digitally is to move to a cloud-first environment.

The migration is far from just a commercial hype as prominent businesses and enterprises have been very vocal about how the move is strategic for their operations.

In fact, according to a report, 79 percent of cloud users have reaped three major benefits from the environment: lower operational costs, increased efficiencies, and enabling new technologies.

However, an increasingly common phenomenon that can be seen in the financial industry is the slow adoption of cloud technology – even though it has been proven that the move is highly strategic.

The Bank of America, for example, has successfully cut down spending on TI infrastructure by US$2.1 billion when it chose to run on the cloud – a defining move in 2013.

The Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) of financial firms are well aware of the need for a cloud migration given the fact that the solution can change the dynamics of financial operations.

From the ability to gain greater control over workload management to the luxury of having elaborate analytics capabilities, the cloud comes with a range of tools to profoundly improve operational efficiencies.

Additionally, the technology allows firms to run smoothly at all times even when there are technical disruptions due to its recovery and backup features. New applications can be built and developed without the fear of downtime as well.

However, CTOs and CIOs are faced with plenty of challenges that hamper their efforts in moving to the cloud.

One particular obstacle is winning the confidence and conviction of senior executives who are greatly concerned over the true necessity to move to the cloud – especially when current legacy systems are still very much functioning.

While to some extent the concern is valid, cloud technology is the most viable solution for firms looking to enable newer technologies like machine intelligence and the Internet of things, as well as to gain a competitive edge over their progressive peers.

Another overwhelming challenge is ensuring the security and overcoming the threats that follow a cloud migration due to the move of customers’ and firms’ data to a public cloud environment.

While CIOs and CTOs must work alongside with security teams and cloud service providers to tackle this matter effectively, senior executives still need to be convinced to approve the move.

This is why the entire process involves educating all levels of executives and employees to develop a principled understanding of cloud technology and the business edge that comes with it.

Though CIOs and CTOs are pushing for the migration for obvious business strategy benefits, they still need the confidence of the firm to make the move possible.

After all, it is about driving firms to make informed decisions that could eminently improve financial operations, elevate the standards of a firm, boost customer experience, and dynamically improve work processes.

Source: techwireasia