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Rahul Sareen, Sr. Consultant

AWS Professional Services

Keep Cloud Transformation on TrackTen Best Practices to Avoid or Break Through

a Stalled Cloud Transformation Program

June 30, 2016

What to expect from the session

• Learn from research done by AWS Professional

Services to understand why many enterprise cloud

transformation programs stall in the field

• Discuss 10 best practices shared by enterprises

who were able to break through the stall

Most transformation programs

will stall in the field

Stall [stawl] verb

1.1 stop or cause to stop making

progress

1.2 (of a motor vehicle or its engine) stop

running, typically because of an overload

on the engine

accelerate

through the

stall

10%experience a

prolonged stall

at around 20%

adoption

70%never

recover

20%

What we would like to see in a cloud

adoption…

gro

wth

time

What we actually saw from Global Enterprises

* Cheerio Score is used as

a proxy for growth rates

that hold price drops and

revenue outliers constant

CUSTOMER 1 CUSTOMER 2 CUSTOMER 3 CUSTOMER 4

0

20

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100

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 250

10

20

30

40

50

60

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25

0

10

20

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1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25

CUSTOMER 5 CUSTOMER 6 CUSTOMER 7

0

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0

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1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 250

20

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1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25

STALLED 20 MONTHS

STALLED 9 MONTHS STALLED 18 MONTHS STALLED 12 MONTHS STALLED 25 MONTHS

STALLED 15 MONTHS STALLED 10 MONTHS

accelerate

through the

stall

10%experience a

prolonged stall

at around 20%

adoption

70%never

recover

20%

That’s hundreds of

millions of dollars in

delayed transformation

each year

What if you could

escape the stall?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/japokskee/

Good news!There are proven tools

we can use

MA

RK

ET

SA

TU

RA

TIO

N

S-curves are a natural law of product markets

S-curves are made up of groups of buyers

Because of the differences between buying

groups…

The Chasm!

(This is the big one)

Crack 2

Crack 1

… several crises emerge in the process

The Chasm!

(This is the big

one)

Moore’s Chasm

The Chasm

Occurs because Early Adopters and

Early Majority are so different

Early Adopters

• It is new to the market

• It is the fastest product

• It is the easiest to use

• It has elegant architecture

• It has unique functionality

What they want is different

Early Majority

• It is the de facto standard

• It has the largest installed

base

• It has most third-party

supporters

• It has great support

• It has low cost of ownership

What does all this mean for you?

Managers in enterprises behave the

same as consumers in consumer

markets

The Great Stall is actually

Moore’s Chasm!

Accelerating through the Great Stall

is the same as Crossing the Chasm

10 things you need to do differently

in your cloud transformation

program…

Admit you’ve got a problem

0 1 Next step

What made your change initiative successful thus far

is not relevant for the next stage in adoption.

Do a Lean UX user persona workshop to understand

the Early Majority in your enterprise.

Change and give incentives to team members

0 2 Next step

Your cloud enablement team is likely full of innovators,

led by an early adopter, and very poachable.

Bring in new team members who can open doors into the

Early Majority market, bring key supplementary skills, and

provide lots of positive reinforcement.

Identify the beachhead

0 3 Next step

You need a strategic market entry project that you can

complete. Your victory will impress follow-on Early

Majority buyers.

Do a beachhead analysis workshop to develop your

decision rubric and analyze the context.

Identify the bowling pins

0 4 Next step

Don’t boil the ocean. It’s about momentum, not

volume.

Reuse your beachhead decision rubric, and run a

bowling pin analysis workshop.

Reposition/recommunicate

0 5 Next step

Change the communications script to speak to the

Early Majority psyche.

Adopt a cloud-first strategy led from the top.

Throw out your existing communications plan and

do a new one.

Reprioritize the offering

0 6 Next step

Deliver the product halo and remember that

transformation != migration.

Revisit your MVP and start to experiment again with

the offering, but use a new group of target

customers.

Address the Early Majority org ecosystem

0 7 Next step

Clear barriers proactively, and don’t bring a knife to a

gunfight—bring in experts here.

Put cloud first into vendor RFPs.

Get on the front foot with finance and financial

reporting, security, legal, and procurement.

Be heard and be seen

0 8 Next step

Communicate wins. And then communicate wins.

After that, communicate wins.

Develop a communications tactical plan that reflects

Early Majority values, and start delivering it.

Lead

0 9 Next step

Leaders must stay engaged and visible. They must

also discipline with carrots and sticks.

Require middle managers to get certified, and

encourage senior managers to set examples by

sitting beside them.

Automate

10 Next step

It was fine to do things manually in the early phase,

but that will never scale to thousands of apps.

Get your people trained with DevSecOps and

DevSecOps on AWS. Reuse a Bot Army like GE or a

Simian Army like Netflix.

Recap: your actions

1. Admit you have a problem

2. Change the team members

3. Identify the beachhead

4. Identify the bowling pins

5. Reposition

6. Reprioritize the offering

7. Work on the ecosystem

8. Be heard and seen

9. Lead

10. Automate

How can AWS help?

0 1Consultancy services

Enterprise accelerator

programs

0 2 Leverage customer-to-customer

contacts

0 3Broadly train. A few stars

cannot implement an all-in

approach alone.

0 4 Facilitate vendor-to-vendor

collaboration

CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTIONS

Book cover Slide: http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Edition-Collins-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B00DB3D81G

S-Curve Slide: http://www.technology.org/2013/06/25/the-long-road-for-electric-vehicles/

Lifecycle vis-à-vis s-curve Slide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

Crossing the Chasm Bell Curve & Summary: http://www.slideshare.net/khberglund/crossing-the-chasm-henrik-berglund

D-Day Slide: http://www.uscg.mil/history/articles/h_normandy.asp