EMEA TECHNOLOGY
The anarchy resulting from this laissezfaire approach is particularly problematic for heavily regulated industries. Our experience helping large banks weighed down with legacy infrastructure move to the cloud reaffirms the view that setting out a comprehensive enterprisewide roadmap at the outset in readiness for a controlled transition to running production workloads in the cloud pays dividends every time. It also swerves the likelihood of stepping on virtual landmines that can set off explosions in areas such as corporate governance, purchasing, and IT service integration. Take governance, for example, where a lack of clarity and visibility surrounding which cloud services are being consumed where, and whether appropriate controls and standards are being met, makes it hard to demonstrate that you are: mitigating risk, managing IT security appropriately, managing audits
and suppliers effectively, and putting appropriate controls in place to ensure compliance with regulations around data sovereignty and privacy such as GDPR. Plus firms also need to demonstrate that they are managing material outsource risks effectively, in order to comply with FCA regulations. The uncontrolled purchase and use of SaaS or PaaS services without the appropriate level of IT engagement throws up a whole raft of integration, visibility, security and support headaches that can impact not just internal systems but also your customers’ experiences – and could ultimately damage your firm’s reputation. ‘Technology snowflakes’ are another cause for concern. They indicate that the same problem is being solved in different ways by separate teams, leading to IT support inefficiencies and additional costs.
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