When the COVID-19 pandemic changed how we work and transact, the financial services industry discovered the limits of legacy technologies that ensured compliance but offered very little in the way of flexibility. Other sectors were already using cloud technologies to be more agile, and could therefore adapt better to change.

It would be a mistake, though, to say that innovation is held back by compliance and security requirements. Rather, industry regulations are established to support responsible innovation.

Technologies like the cloud may require us to rethink security and compliance, but that doesn’t mean we have to compromise in these areas. If anything, more effort may be needed to understand these technologies and apply the features that give more control.

• ALSO READ à How financial services institutions can take bolder steps towards digital transformation

That is not a novel observation, yet many organizations still struggle to put it into action.

See cloud as an enabler

Most organizations remain in the early stages of their cloud strategy, planning the best way forward. One of the obstacles they face is an organizational “immune system” that is resistant to change: “We did it like that for many years and it worked! So why change?”

The reason is simple: the cloud is not just an evolution of technology but also a business enabler.

Does this mean organizations in the financial sector should leave behind their current infrastructure and move everything to the cloud? Probably not. The cloud is not the solution to every workload challenge.

But, for modern workloads driven by AI and analytics, it makes more sense to use what already exists in the cloud than to reinvent the wheel in a legacy on-premises environment. Your time to market will improve, your total cost of ownership will be lower and, down the line, your return on investment will be higher.

Start with clear business goals

To make a success of your journey to the cloud, first define the business objectives you want to achieve – clearly. Once you’ve determined how you want to use it, measure your progress regularly in terms of your organization’s key business indicators.

Then you can start looking at other areas of the cloud in more depth: governance, economics, networking, security, compliance, operations and DevOps.

• ALSO READ à Creating a mature cloud economics strategy for your organization

Accelerate your cloud optimization

Crafting the perfect cloud strategy is likely to be complex and time-consuming. But why go it alone?

Using a managed service provider like NTT that has cloud expertise and extensive experience with clients in the financial industry can accelerate this process significantly, from design and deployment to management and optimization, and across on-premises, private or public clouds.

Read more about NTT’s Multicloud as a Service.

Written by Patrice Cheret, Senior Director Managed Cloud Infrastructure Services, NTT Luxembourg PSF