Every day, it seems, businesses are making new cloud applications available. For example Apple launched their iCloud service on 13th October. The Internet Exchange Point in London, a conduit for much of the UK’s Internet traffic, showed a significant spike between 6pm and 11pm.
Apple has built iCloud support right into iOS 5, OS X 10.7 Lion, and other major Apple apps. Sign in, and iCloud transparently takes care of syncing music, video, pictures, email, calendars, contacts, and more between devices. iCloud stores customers content and wirelessly pushes it to all their devices.
In this example Apple has a direct relationship with the consumer of their services and has obviated the need for an Internal Service Provider.
So what impact is Cloud Computing likely to have on Internal Service Providers:
Internal Service Provider Support Staff typically focus on technical / platform skills. – In the future, the support staff will most likely be outsourced to a company that can provide services more efficiently by using proven technology solutions and through economies of scale. New Retained Orgnisation capabilities will be required which will result in fewer but more senior hybrid (Business & Technology) roles.
Today’s ISPs build and manage their own Service Assets. –In the future, these Service Assets will be remote (in the cloud). The ISP will likely not be building or maintaining their own infrastructure, platforms or non strategic (KTLO) applications. In the future ISPs will only be responsible for the Strategic Applications that differentiate their Business in the market. Typically IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and BPaaS will be outsourced. (AKA the Goldman Sachs model).
Portfolio & Project management. – IS-related implementations of software and new technology will be outsourced. The Internal Service Provider will be responsible for Portfolio and Project Management. There will be a requirement for staff with strong Governance (ISACA CobIT 5) backgrounds who are empowered to make informed investment portfolio decisions.
Unified Communications. – Internal Service Providers wil need to work with their TelCo(s) to implement real-time collaboration services such as IM (chat), IP telephony, Webinars, video conferencing that is also integrated with unified messaging (voicemail, Email, SMS and Scan to Email). With the increase of Mobility Services (Tablet and SmartPhone) these services must be ubiquitous (always on).
Trusted Business Advisor. – In the future Business Partners / Business Relationship Managers will act as trusted advisors to their respective Business Unit Buyers of Services and Customer Groups. They will present ideas on how Information Services can be exploited by the Business rather than purely serve as order takers.
thisiswhatgoodlookslike 