Why Businesses Move To the Cloud: They Hate IT

jfruhlinger writes "Cloud services can be unreliable and pricey, and they often duplicate capabilities larger companies already have in-house. So why do many managers within organizations use them? Partly because they don't want to deal with their own company's IT department. Getting a big project started is often such a politically fraught process that for many managers it's easier to simply write a check."

Comments

Re:Of course

[dkleinsc]

I take it you've never worked in an organization that worked something like this:

Manager: "I need a perfect solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem - I just signed a 7-figure contract saying we'd provide that in 2 weeks."
IT: "There's no way to do this, we've got lots of papers and well-known theory that proves that this is a problem the best mathematical and scientific minds that have ever existed in the last 50 years aren't able to solve."
Manager: "Just get it done, ok? Look, there's a lot of money riding on this."

2 weeks later ...
Manager: "So where's that Traveling Salesman Problem solution I asked for?"
IT: "It's not ready yet. As I previously mentioned, it's a virtual impossibility."
Manager: "Keep at it - we can run over, it will penalize us in the contract a bit. Work overtime, stay in the office, do whatever else you need to do, until it's done."

4 weeks later ...
Manager: "So why isn't this Traveling Salesman Problem ready?"
IT: "As I previously mentioned, there's no way to do this."
Manager: "Your fired."

Re:Duh

[datapharmer]

Use that to your advantage. I have a client that has downsized their IT department out of existence. It is now completely outsourced to me and "the cloud". The reason? It would take literally *years* of arm twisting to get anything done internally.... there was always a reason it couldn't be done. Sometimes (but only sometimes) the reasons were legitimate. The difference between the IT staff that got fired and me, is when it could be done I did it and completed things on schedule. When it couldn't be done I told them why and provided other options. If they have an unrealistic expectation tell them that, but also tell them what their alternatives are: spend more money now, use "cloud" (aka rented) resources ad pay later. Show them the cost projections for the service versus the acquisition for 1 year versus 3 or 5 years. The company I mentioned earlier now uses a combination of hosted/cloud services and (locally) outsourced IT to manage their internal infrastructure. Their costs are a fraction of what they were 3 years ago, and I guarantee if you ask anyone there they will tell you that they are happier with the quality, reliability and types of services they have now versus 3 years ago. Sure some companies are run by morons who will save a buck now and find themselves in a nice steaming pile of IT infrastructure meltdown later, but a decent number of companies are just tired of lazy, socially inept IT employees holding back the entire company.