September 201592--Head to the Cloud, but Keep it PrivateCloud offers us true market pricing at competitive rates and elastic compute in order to flex with the demand of the business. Of course, being in a heavily regulated industry, such as financial services, means strict policies and security around our sensitive information. While a litany of providers are rolling out attractive services on public clouds, we felt building a private cloud environment was safer and would enable us to move to a hybrid/public environment in the future. Over time, as the industry remedies liability issues related to information breaches, we may become more comfortable with public or hybrid clouds. Indeed, some banks are heading to public clouds to take bigger bites out of their technology budgets. But at this stage, we felt the tradeoffs between cost and security pointed to a private cloud solution for us.3--Engage Multiple ProvidersWhen we conducted our due diligence for service providers, we identified a global partner with offerings that suited our needs. But we didn't stop there. Why? Because we felt that having two providers would give us additional flexibility. Diversity was important to us because we aren't large enough from an IT standpoint to create significant leverage at the negotiating table. Having two providers grants us the ability to expand our contract with either or both providers depending on how they respond to our growing needs. Tomorrow, if CIT decides to expand its presence in a certain geographic area, we can go to both providers and ask what services they provide in that region. It also protects us in the event one provider exits the market.4--Embrace New PerspectivesIn CIT's case, it wasn't just the storms that enabled transformational change--it was also the fact that we made a commitment as a team not to be locked into a particular way of doing things. Often, a fresh pair of eyes can bring a new perspective and challenge traditional problem-solving approaches. We brought in some experienced resources familiar with other models for managing data centers which helped the team consider alternatives to our previous approach. Sometimes, just asking about how current practices evolved can lead to revealing answers that explain the status quo--and help upend it. These kinds of conversations are tougher to have at larger companies that already made significant technology investments, but even at big organizations, they can inspire incremental changes that eventually add up.5--Ensure Strong IT Governance and Business AlignmentI was fortunate that CIT already had a well-developed governance structure, with strong engagement at the top of the organization and across the enterprise. Involving a wide range of people from across your business units in IT decisions and programs not only helps a CIO to mitigate risks, but also to anticipate problems before they surface. Migrating from an ownership to a co-location model had its risks, but the transition was made seamless through the steady involvement of the company's senior executives across a multitude of functions, as well as a dedicated steering committee. Of course, every business is different, and banks come in all sizes. I've worked for big and small companies with different needs and favored solutions. You have to figure out what's right for your organization, and that requires careful analysis and planning. Execution is key. However, you don't want to get to the end of an implementation and find yourself with a low-cost, inefficient data center that simply doesn't suit your business's needs. In the end, having an effective data center solution isn't the primary objective of your company--rather, it's a tool to help your company achieve and exceed its business goals. Often, a fresh pair of eyes can bring a new perspective and challenge traditional problem-solving approaches'BC
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