ITWire

Not only are the cloud vendors coming to grips with multiple different operating models - most market leaders will have five or more operating models running concurrently by 2015 according to Accenture - but the new risk profile of being a cloud vendor. Where companies in the past might have sold an on premises solution to clients leaving them to handle issues like security and privacy, once a technology company is hosting clients' personal and corporate data, their risk profile becomes far sharper.

At the same time there is growing pressure for cloud vendors to shelve regular, but slow full product updates, and instead move to continuous improvement. For some organisations this will require them to consider abandoning traditional waterfall development in favour of Agile system development demanding a cultural overhaul.

Not that a company can completely abandon its legacy businesses. According to the report; 'For many years the legacy businesses of technology companies still will dominate in the revenues and need substantial investment to keep operating profitably.'

The challenge for senior management is to be able to make the right decisions about where to invest, which models to embrace and run in parallel, and which business models need to be retired. 'Governance and decision making is where the rubber meets the road in building successful cloud businesses,' according to Accenture.

It notes that even mid-sized companies can become almost paralysed at decision making time, especially where leaders are facing decisions that may see cloud services cannibalise legacy businesses. As one interviewee noted companies should expect to face battles and 'religious wars' when making the hard decisions.

So how can vendors get it right? Read on.