Cloud Computing for CIOs: the Role of your IT within the company

If we look at how your company is built from the inside, it is possible to get some information on your company’s IT power. Research on MIS (Management of Information Systems) calls this topic “the strategic role of information management”. This topic knows 4 major strategy types, which are listed below.

Let us discuss each company type and how it fits into cloud computing.
Type 1: Support. In this company type, the current IT potential as well as the future IT potential is low. This means that IT is not very important and will never be important. IT basically consists of some minor operating tasks, whereas strategic and administrative tasks are not included. IT costs are basically low and will stay low. Cloud Computing can help these company types by reducing the number of software licences such as for Text editing by outsourcing that to the Cloud. It could be handled by Google Docs or a similar SaaS Application.
Type 2: Fabric. Fabric means that the current state of the IT potential is high, but it is reduced significantly. This often happens when a company is sold to another company and the new owner will handle IT. Major investments are postponed and the only important thing is to keep IT up and running until it is handled by the new department. New projects (if there are any) could be done by Cloud Platforms such as IaaS. PaaS might not be that good since projects are likely to be replaced in the near future. In my opinion, PaaS Projects are for scalability (IaaS also). However, IaaS are great to do some timely limited Compute topics.
Type 3: Breakthrough. In this IT type, the potential is currently low but it will get important in the future. IT spendings will increase significantly and the company will focus on IT as strategic opportunity. To make most out of the budget, spendings on Cloud Platforms of any type are to consider. New Projects can be done with PaaS Platforms as they offer additional benefits in terms of programming model and scalability.
Type 4: Weapon. The current IT potential is high and it will stay high in the future. Depending on what the company offers and the level of security associated with it, a major switch to cloud computing is possible. However, it must be evaluated what services need to stay within the company (private cloud) or what services can be outsourced to a public cloud.