Intelligent CIO APAC Issue 03 | Page 43

FEATURE : CIO STRATEGIES
1 . Establish a cross-functional cost governance board . A team should be comprised of members from various parts of the business including finance , IT operations , security and compliance . Application owners should be assigned and a C-level leader should be appointed as the executive sponsor to hold the team accountable to the cloud budget goals and help clear potential roadblocks . this phase . A careful evaluation of the organization ’ s application architectures can establish and help accelerate longterm cost optimization projects .
5 . Introduce processes and policies to prevent runaway costs . Once the initial cost savings measures have been implemented , the next step is to create enforcement policies around cloud cost , usage , security and governance . With

WITH THE RECENT DISRUPTIONS , BUSINESSES ARE BECOMING MORE

RECEPTIVE TO CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES . THUS , SPENDING ON MULTI-CLOUD AND HYBRID CLOUD SOLUTIONS IS EXPECTED

TO INCREASE GOING FORWARD .

2 . Meet frequently . The cost governance board should meet weekly , at first , to generate momentum . Virtual meetings are acceptable , of course , as long as there is a clear agenda and a good attendance is maintained . The cadence can be changed to twice-a-month or monthly once the team is established .
3 . Define spend targets for the cloud . The cost governance board ’ s finance representative can set expectations around budgets and define key metrics for cost savings goals . They can also address issues like contract terms and how much the business can invest upfront to reduce operational expenditures . The board should be able to set realistic budgets for the next financial reporting period . To keep the company ’ s cost saving efforts intact , the team should also try to avoid vendor lock-ins .
4 . Review wasteful spending and execute quick wins . The first starting point around cost savings should be looking at quick wins such as eliminating unused , over allocated or misconfigured resources . Engaging with experienced cloud operators can rapidly accelerate third-party tools , IT teams can easily stay on top of these policies and be alerted to any violations .
The value of strategic cloud and IT investments
Inventory of resources , detailed billing reports , cost tagging and budget threshold status reports are key pieces of information that can help business leaders make decisions and strategic IT investments .
To ensure that the right information and controls are available to the right people in the organization , processes should be defined and implemented . A cost governance framework can glue all the pieces together and provide a full picture of what a profitable IT investment should look like .
There is no question that the COVID-19 crisis has substantially impacted business performance , requiring the swift implementation of measures to respond to business needs . The crisis highlighted the need to establish strategic cost transformation plans , not only to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in the short-term but more importantly , to recover and be ready for the next wave of disruptions in the future . • www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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