Examples for Cloud Deployment Models in a Business Environment
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that want to implement cloud services, but leave their IT department untouched. The
cost saving aspect of cloud services will be nullified, if IT Administrators still need to
maintain servers, install software, or tell the cloud provider what to do. This means
that a duplication of work is performed and the company pursues a wrong cloud
strategy.
Faltus (2013) on the other hand says that a well-established IT department is
capable to utilize new capacities implied through cloud services, in order to
contribute to the achievement of strategic business goals. Faltus cites an example
of two possibilities of an IT department: It does make a difference if a person, who
has an appointment with a company’s IT department, is asked to go into the
basement or into the upper stories. The “basement” IT usually consists of
employees having a high affinity for technology. It acts mostly as a cost center, but
does not contribute to the company’s business strategy per se. The “upper stories”
IT department on the other hand takes a more important role for the reason alone
of being located next to or near the corporate governance. Employees in such a
department are white-collar employees, the IT happens on a desk, on flipcharts, or
on a whiteboard. The strategic alignment and the achievement of strategic business
goals are key tasks. Due to the fact that the “traditional” IT structure is outsourced,
capacities are available and economies of scale can be used. Faltus thinks that the
“
classic” IT will take a back seat and mostly consist of commodity tasks in the near
future.
8.5.1
Transforming Traditional IT into Cloud IT
An ongoing adoption of cloud services with the purpose of business process
outsourcing will also have an impact on the IT department and its employees. The
role of integration and vendor management functions will gain more in relevance.
Hence a shift of responsibilities takes place, but also a new skill-set is required for
employees in an IT department. Instead of employees performing code
programming and engineering tasks, analysts and product managers are requested,
who work with a technology provider (Weitz & Casselberry, 2013). Employees need
to be more commercially focused; they need to comprehend Service Level
