In my role at Microsoft I get to work with top Canadian partners to help them bring new solutions or offerings to market.  As I talk to partners about building cloud practices it is clear that  cloud maturity and experience of both customers and partners varies widely.  While most customers have some sort of cloud strategy or have adopted cloud as an IT delivery model, the number that could be classed as mature, or very experienced, is significantly lower.

One thing that differentiates beginning cloud users versus experienced cloud users is the level of automation and sophistication in operations.  Experienced cloud users are often found to be operating in a Continuous Development, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment mode which takes advantage of cloud capabilities and speeds time to market for new solutions.  In comparison, beginning, or less mature, cloud users are still in the lift-and-shift mode which has significant potential to reduce on premise capital expenditure, but may not truly leverage the operational efficiencies that the cloud has to offer.

One of the partners I’m currently working with is Scalar (https://www.scalar.ca/) and they have recently released their 2017 Cloud Study.  In the study they look at cloud-based delivery of applications and workloads and the new efficiencies that come along with cloud delivery. Interestingly the Scalar study finds less than 20% of respondents are classified as Experienced Cloud Users.  There is a great opportunity for partners to deliver significant value to their customers in helping both define strategy and deliver managed services that take advantage of public cloud capabilities

Whether you are an end customer or a partner I encourage you to take a look at the 2017 Cloud Study report as I think the results of the Scalar Cloud Study should generate many interesting discussions around the boardroom table.

If you are a partner in Canada looking to build or expand your cloud managed service practice, please reach out as I’d love to talk to you.