je.st
news
Prioritize Strategy to Strengthen Your Cloud Transformation
2025-11-27 16:38:39| The Webmail Blog
Prioritize Strategy to Strengthen Your Cloud Transformation caro2698 Thu, 11/27/2025 - 09:38 Cloud Insights Prioritize Strategy to Strengthen Your Cloud Transformation December 8, 2025 by Zachary Symm, Product Manager for Managed Public Cloud, Rackspace Technology Link Copied! Recent Posts Prioritize Strategy to Strengthen Your Cloud Transformation December 8th, 2025 Modern IT Service Management is Transforming Managed Services - Part 1 December 4th, 2025 How Kiro AI Agents Accelerate Development from Modernization to Cloud Migration Analysis December 1st, 2025 Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? November 25th, 2025 Strengthening Healthcare Operations Through Cyber Resilience November 24th, 2025 Related Posts Cloud Insights Prioritize Strategy to Strengthen Your Cloud Transformation December 8th, 2025 Cloud Insights Modern IT Service Management is Transforming Managed Services - Part 1 December 4th, 2025 AI Insights How Kiro AI Agents Accelerate Development from Modernization to Cloud Migration Analysis December 1st, 2025 AI Insights Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? November 25th, 2025 Cloud Insights Strengthening Healthcare Operations Through Cyber Resilience November 24th, 2025 Learn how to move beyond the most commoncloud transformation challenges with clear strategy, governance, modernization and continuous optimization in Microsoft Azure. Organizations across every industry continue to accelerate their move to Microsoft Azure to improve agility, modernize operations and unlock AI-ready innovation. The opportunity is significant, yet cloud transformation (the evolution of your environment to take full advantage of clouds scale, resilience and AI capabilities) requires thoughtful planning and ongoing optimization to reach full value. Most missteps trace back to strategy, governance and the pace of organizational change, not Microsoft Azure itself. Understanding the most common challenges helps you create a clearer, more effective plan for what comes next. Below are five areas that often slow progress and practical ways to address them. Challenge 1: Treating cloud as a technology project instead of a business strategy From a technical perspective, moving to Microsoft Azure is rarely the hard part. The challenge is using cloud to improve how teams operate and deliver outcomes. When strategy remains inside IT, the result is often lift-and-shift migrations that keep systems running but offer limited strategic advantage. How to move past it Begin with business goals, such as faster product delivery, data-driven decision-making, or improved scalability. Link Azure capabilities to outcomes, from AI and analytics to remote productivity through Azure Virtual Desktop. Build a roadmap that aligns migration, modernization and automation milestones to measurable KPIs. Microsoft Azure delivers the most value when it is treated as a catalyst for business advancement. Challenge 2: Not realizing the importance of change management Microsoft Azure introduces new tools, workflows, and ways of working across operations, security, finance, and engineering. When teams dont understand how their roles evolve or how to use tools like Azure Portal, Azure DevOps or Microsoft Defender for Cloud, adoption slows. How to move past it Communicate early and often. Show employees how Azure streamlines daily processes like patching and routine maintenance. Upskill continuously. Create a culture of continuous learning through Microsoft certifications and hands-on training. Empower cross-functional champions. They can champion Microsoft Azure best practices. Measure adoption. Use Azure usage analytics and dashboards to monitor adoption rates and training impact. Technology accelerates progress when people are equipped to use it confidently. Challenge 3: Limited governance and cost visibility Microsoft Azures flexibility drives innovation, but it needs clear governance to maintain consistency, security and financial control. Without it, organizations can experience fragmented environments, inconsistent configurations and unpredictable costs. How to move past it Establish a cloud center of excellence to guide governance and optimization. Use native Microsoft Azure capabilities, including Azure Policy, Blueprints and role-based access control, to standardize environments. Adopt FinOps practices using Azure Cost Management + Billing to align engineering and finance. Leverage expert partners. Rackspace Technology, recognized by ISG as a Leader in FinOps Services, helps organizations embed financial discipline from the start. Effective governance turns Microsoft Azure into a secure, compliant and cost-efficient foundation for growth. Challenge 4: Migrating without modernizing Rushing to move workloads into Microsoft Azure as-is might help meet short-term deadlines, but it rarely delivers the full advantages of cloud scalability or resilience. Legacy applications re-hosted on Azure Virtual Machines often remain costly and difficult to manage. How to move past it Assess workloads with Azure Migrate and the Azure Well-Architected Framework to determine modernization paths. Adopt Azure App Service, Azure Functions or Azure Kubernetes Service for elastic scale and resilient architectures. Use Azure SQL Database or Cosmos DB to reduce management overhead and accelerate updates. Automate deployments with Azure Resource Manager templates or Bicep for consistent environments. Modernization unlocks the economics, resilience and velocity that Microsoft Azure is designed to deliver. Challenge 5: Limited ongoing optimization Microsoft Azure evolves quickly. New capabilities, pricing models and performance options emerge every month. Organizations that stop optimizing after migration miss opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce cost over time. The solution is to hardwire continuous optimization into your operational plan so you can adapt and improve with each Azure release. How to move past it Monitor continuously with Azure Monitor, Application Insights and Log Analytics. Apply FinOps practices and use Azure Advisor to guide optimization decisions. Engage ongoing engineering expertise. Rackspace Elastic Engineering embeds Microsoft Azure specialists who improve architectures, governance and performance. Automate optimization through tagging, autoscaling and scheduled shutdowns for non-production environments. Ongoing optimization keeps your Microsoft Azure environment aligned to business priorities as they evolve. Bonus: Trying to navigate everything alone Microsoft Azure is powerful and expansive, offering thousands of services and constant innovation. Many organizations benefit from a partner that helps accelerate adoption and avoid common architectural, operational and financial missteps. How to move past it Work with a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP like Rackspace Technology, which offers: Deep expertise across infrastructure, data and AI ISG-recognized FinOps leadership for clear financial governance Rackspace Elastic Engineering a collaborative model that embeds Microsoft Azure architects, DevOps engineers and FinOps specialists into your teams Proven governance, automation and modernization frameworks that accelerate time to value Turning challenges into opportunities Most enterprises face these challenges at some point in their cloud journey. What separates successful Microsoft Azure leaders is how they prepare, plan and evolve. Successful organizations: Treat cloud transformation as a business strategy. Prioritize people and change management. Build governance and FinOps into day-one operations. Modernize to take advantage of Azure-native services. Commit to continuous optimization with the right expertise. Azure transformation is an ongoing journey Microsoft Azures pace of innovation means the journey continues as new services, AI capabilities and automation patterns emerge. Organizations that adopt adaptive strategies grounded in governance, financial clarity and continuous improvement see greater long-term impact. By avoiding these common challenges and aligning people, processes and technology, Microsoft Azure becomes a foundation for consistent, measurable business results. Transform smarter, govern stronger and innovate faster with Microsoft Azure. Explore how Rackspace Technology, an Azure Expert MSP recognized for FinOps excellence, helps enterprises strengthen strategy, governance and continuous optimization across their Microsoft Azure environments. Contact us today to learn more about cloud transformation and explore our Microsoft Azure services. Tags: Public Cloud Cloud Insights Microsoft
Category:Telecommunications
LATEST NEWS
Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth?
2025-11-25 17:08:21| The Webmail Blog
Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? caro2698 Tue, 11/25/2025 - 10:08 AI Insights Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? November 25, 2025 by Ben Blanquera, VP of Technology and Sustainability, Rackspace Technology Link Copied! Recent Posts Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? November 25th, 2025 Strengthening Healthcare Operations Through Cyber Resilience November 24th, 2025 The Hidden Complexity of Microsoft 365 Copilot and How to Get Ready for It November 19th, 2025 The Hidden Complexity of Microsoft 365 Copilot and How to Get Ready for It November 19th, 2025 Overcoming Cloud Adoption Challenges in Healthcare November 18th, 2025 Related Posts AI Insights Is Your AI Operation Achieving Long-Term, Sustainable Growth? November 25th, 2025 Cloud Insights Strengthening Healthcare Operations Through Cyber Resilience November 24th, 2025 Cloud Insights, Products The Hidden Complexity of Microsoft 365 Copilot and How to Get Ready for It November 19th, 2025 Cloud Insights, Products The Hidden Complexity of Microsoft 365 Copilot and How to Get Ready for It November 19th, 2025 Cloud Insights Overcoming Cloud Adoption Challenges in Healthcare November 18th, 2025 Should you move beyond isolated AI projects and create a cohesive, strategic portfolio to help achieve long-term AI growth? Discover what our expert thinks. We are all witnesses to the reimagining of an industry cycle. AI is reshaping how to create value and how to build a competitive advantage. However, many organizations are engaged in todays transformational period with short-term thinking. Many are tackling individual AI tasks while overlooking their long-term sustainability consequences. This narrow approach speaks to a reality that was discovered in our recent global report, The AI Acceleration Gap: Why Some Enterprises Are Surging Ahead. According to the report, AI investments have expanded 250% from $2.5 million to $8.7 million per organization. However, only 13% of the 1,400 IT decision-makers we surveyed are seeing measurable returns. This is in direct contrast to the 64% who said theyve achieved substantial benefits from AI. This group of AI Leaders are three times more likely to successfully scale deployments. Whats causing this disparity? For starters, AI Leaders are tackling AI investments like a diversified financial portfolio. This includes balancing financial returns with operational resilience and ethical responsibility. They believe this approach gives them a competitive advantage, an opportunity to achieve long-term growth and the ability to avoid the accumulation of unsustainable technical debt. Sustainable portfolio thinking is critical today In our AI-driven world, entire industries are being reimagined. The traditional move-fast-and-break-things approach to building is no longer viable. Its likely the organizations that dominate the next decade will be those that use portfolio thinking to build operationally resilient, economically viable and ethically sound AI within a disciplined framework. Portfolio thinking widens your field of view. Instead of focusing narrowly on individual wins, it helps you confront the broader questions that shape sustainable AI, such as: Operational capabilities: What should we create to sustain our AI systems over the long term? AI investments: How can we create compounding economic value in the face of escalating costs? Stakeholder trust: How can we ensure our AI investments strengthen trust? Amazon offers a clear example of how a portfolio-driven strategy creates sustainable transformation. At the start of the internet era, the company developed complementary capabilities across multiple dimensions rather than pursue disconnected e-commerce tasks. Three layers in a sustainable investment framework How can your organization evolve from an isolated AI approach to a disciplined strategy? At Rackspace, weve seen that sustainable portfolios apply investments across three layers to reinforce operational, economic and ethical sustainability the foundation layer, the growth layer and the innovation layer. Foundation layer: building a sustainable bedrock (50% to 60% allocation) A strong AI portfolio has a set of rule-based, deterministic applications. The goal is to achieve economic value within six to 12 months while building infrastructure and achieving ethical transparency. This helps establish the governance framework, data pipelines and organizational ability to help enable sustainable scaling. Foundation investments should employ specific integrated sustainability filters, including: Economic: Demonstrate ROI within 18 months Operational: Employ existing skills while building AI capabilities Ethical: Strengthen stakeholder trust with transparent decision logic Growth layer: building a sustainable competitive advantage (30% to 40% allocation) Growth layer investments are advanced agentic AI applications that operate with autonomy. They make decisions within defined parameters to create operational excellence, economic value, and ethical governance capabilities. A good example of creating economic efficiency while achieving operational scale and maintaining ethical customer service standards is Bank of Americas virtual assistant. It has facilitated over three billion customer interactions, with more than 98% of users finding the information they were looking for. Growth investments require advanced sustainability integration, including: Restricted access: for operational security Fail-safe defaults: to protect performance and trust Logging: to capture operational health, economic impact and ethical decision making Innovation layer: securing a sustainable future advantage (10% to 15% allocation) Innovation investments are strategic bets on fully autonomous agentic AI systems. They are designed to create a competitive advantage that is both transformational and sustainable. The investments have the potential for achieving a long-term competitive advantage. However, they may require capital and sophisticated multidimensional risk management. A good example is DHL's Resilience360 platform. It utilizes AI-powered analytics and machine learning to help over 13,000 users worldwide predict and mitigate disruptions in their supply chains. Portfolio maturity to drive strategic allocation When applying the portfolio approach to AI strategy, decision makers should adjust their portfolio allocation according to their sustainability maturity, for example: Sustainability beginners (70% foundation, 25% growth, 5% innovation): Build integrated operational, economic and ethical capabilities via high-impact applications while also establishing governance frameworks. Sustainability adopters (50% foundation, 40% growth, 10% innovation): After launching controlled experiments with autonomous systems, leverage established infrastructure to deploy sophisticated applications. Sustainability leaders (40% foundation, 45% growth, 15% innovation): Balance market leadership with operational excellence via autonomous systems. This is where the AI Leaders in our study operate. They have achieved the Holy Grail: running projects more sustainably and more strategically. This level can help companies sidestep normal pitfalls, such as over-investing in sophisticated applications before prioritizing short-term economic gains over operational resilience, establishing sustainable foundations or deploying AI without considering long-term ethical implications. The sustainable, competitive imperative How large is the opportunity for establishing sustainable AI portfolios? Its shrinking every day. But businesses that develop sustainability-driven AI strategies have the potential to lead the pack in their marketplace. We predict that the future will be led by AI leaders who understand that we are deploying new technologies while rebuilding entire industries on sustainable foundations. By balancing operational resilience, economic returns and ethical responsibility, leaders who embrace the integrated approach will be well positioned to define the AI revolution and AIs long-term sustainability. Download the Rackspace report, The AI Acceleration Gap: Why Some Enterprises Are Surging Aead. Tags: AI AI Insights
Category: Telecommunications