Transcript: Becoming cloud-powered with the right culture

Transcript

Nick McQuire:
Leadership is critical to cloud transformation.

Warren Tucker:
Because there's a huge amount of content on the ‘what is the technology about?’ But much less on the ‘what does it mean for me?’

Warren:
So it's brilliant to be here today to talk about all things cloud transformation, data, digital, GenAI.

We’re seeing a number of different trends either get in the way or enable success in the world of cloud. One of them is leadership.

How do you approach leadership or what are you seeing in the leadership space that really makes the difference between organisations that are successful or unsuccessful?

Nick:
Leadership is critical to cloud transformation and we see this across the board internally within Microsoft and of course within our customer demographic. You know, from a top down perspective for organisations to be successful in cloud, the first thing is that those leaders, they really need to almost be, you know, the emblem of the adoption of these new types of technologies that are enabled by the cloud for the organisation in order to facilitate that wider scale adoption.

What we see from a challenge perspective is oftentimes organisations apply siloed thinking to technology projects to data, transformation, etc. All linked to how they see the cloud as well, by the way. And so for the leadership of the organisation to be, you know, those evangelists, it's really, really important to mitigate that.

But the most important thing, I think more significant than that is about enacting culture and ultimately being kind of enablers of what we see is as a critical kind of collaborative culture that is necessary to drive cloud transformation.

Warren:
I mean, we're seeing, very similar trends across our clients, including the role of different leaders in the choices and decisions around cloud.

So we're seeing.

Nick:
Interesting.

Warren:
In cloud decisions, CEOs are involved directly in 60% of them. So we're starting to see those leaders play a much more active role in the cultural adoption, but also the commercial exploitation and understanding the role that cloud, data, digital play in unlocking value for the business.

Nick:
And why is that? Why are you seeing that commitment?

Warren:
I think it's because they're well, I think organisations are recognising that there's a huge opportunity for, we talk about business model reinvention and it sounds like buzzwords, but it's really around how do you apply some of these technologies and genuinely look at how are they able to help develop new products, new services, reach into new markets.

We did a survey across 2,200-plus companies across Europe. Of that base, only 16% have gone all in on the cloud.

Nick:
Yeah.

Warren:
Which means 16% can harness all of that innovation, all of the power of those generative AI models that are embedded. Which I think then translates into the sort of counter stat
which is saying 66% of them think that they will be all in, in the next two years.

Nick:
Yeah.

Warren:
Now that's a big ask for organisations to work through. What are you seeing in terms of those that are effectively increasing the participation of the business in making that happen?

Nick:
You know, 80%-plus of digitally mature or cloud mature organisations, depend highly on cross-functional collaboration. So that cross-functional collaboration is really really important.
But what we see is oftentimes this isn't necessarily happening in all organisations.

What we're finding is that companies are asking us a lot, well, how do you at Microsoft, how do you guys enable this?

And I think that cross-functional collaborative approach to how do you foster new ideas is really important in terms of how we drive new products and enable new product but also in terms of how we improve our products as well.

Warren:
There's a huge amount of, I think, content on the what is the technology about, but much less on the what does it mean for me? And that could be whether that's for the CMO, the CSO, whether it's the CEO, but GenAI has been a fantastic lever to draw attention to just the consumer kind of interface. That you start to see just again shines a bright spotlight on the world of the CIO, but it makes them that much more relevant to the business.

Where we're trying to really apply some of these, leading technologies for our clients to make commercial outcomes real, whether that's business model reinvention, harnessing the power of data, commercialising data,or just basic modernisation of their business processes.

Nick:
I love this notion of cloud being that enabler of business transformation, not necessarily IT transformation, but also an enabler of new, new growth opportunities for companies on the innovation side.

Warren:
So we're also seeing a need for executive-level education and real immersion in some of these technologies.How are you seeing organisations achieve success in that regard and how perhaps, how have you upskilled or educated people across Microsoft as a business, as it's gone through its own sort of modernisation journey?

Nick:
I think the disruption that is coming from the cloud and that connectivity to business value creation is going to be really significant over the next number of years. And so the ability for the organisation to embed continuous learning around cloud, upskilling, core competency, both technical and business. I think what we've seen with cloud, you know, over the last, you know, decade plus, is a lot of the conversation is focussed on optimisation. What we're seeing now with generative AI in particular is a much more of that strategic focus around, okay, the broader innovation piece.

Okay, how do we leverage this from a business innovation point of view?

We've had to go through a significant cloud transformation over the last number of years and that has involved a very big focus on upskilling. I think the primary thing that we've been successful with, and this is come again from the conversation top down, is that we have made it is embedded into upskilling as a core part of our culture and our performance in particular. But that's a critical aspect in getting the adoption and getting the commitment across the organisation.

Warren:
We're also seeing a need for executive level education, a real immersion in some of these technologies, so we've spent time working with boards of clients helping them understand so for example, what does a pivot to cloud mean for the CFO?

What does it mean from an OpEx, CapEx split? How do you go about managing that transition of old to new?

Nick:
The question I would have is, so is that also now is the generative AI conversation kind of the lead into the broader cloud strategy conversation by role, as well?

Warren:
Well, I think it is and I think it is because I think organisations need an answer.

Nick:
They do.

Warren:
So, where are they looking at the adoption of these technologies and what does that mean, whether that's in software firms that ultimately have the opportunity to embed some of these technologies in the development of their core products and propositions. Which, again can have radical impacts on time to market, ability to experiment, ability to spin up different pieces of software without needing anywhere near the size of teams through to much more traditional organisations.