The Cloud Work Group

Strengthening your Business Case for Using Cloud : Cloud Business Use-Cases

Each use-case shows business problems addressed by using Cloud computing. This paper describes the business considerations that influenced the organization to use Cloud computing, but does not describe the technical considerations that determined how the organization used Cloud computing. The use-cases are drawn from real-life experiences. They are representative of the kinds of organization that can benefit from using the Cloud.

The business use-case template is comprised of six main elements:

Category – industry, sector, or environment
Company Background (Optional)
Business Problem/Description of the situation
Actors impacted by this business problem
Key Business Requirements (encompasses quality and/or service-level requirements – where known)
Business Risks experienced by this problem

Category: Cross-Industry

Business Activity Reporting

Company Background	This cross-industry company must address the need to produce different reports for Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Serivce-Level Agreements (SLA) to plan, understand, and optimize operational and financial performance.
Business Problem/Description	The reports/status information for numerous stakeholders is required in varying formats. However, data for creating reports is in disparate locations, and the data needs to be aggregated, filtered, and assembled in order to be more useful and generate value for the target audience.
Actors	Shareholders Operational Management Service Providers
Business Requirements	Need to generate management reports for shareholders using the same underlying data, but in a different format, as those used for operational management to report the business performance to shareholders – this can be a powerful way of driving efficiency and complying with exchange listing requirements. Need Service-Level Agreement/Operational-Level Agreement (SLA/OLA) reports for service providers so that various internal and external service providers can have their performance reports produced from disparate locations and organizational entities.
Business Risks	Inadequate governance due to lack of timely and inefficient reporting Lost customers if SLAs or OLAs not met Loss of transparency for stakeholders

Modernization

Company Background	This cross-industry company must address modernization of its business processes and legacy applications. However, they do not have the skills in-house to conduct such activities. Existing business services and assets are out-of-date and need modernization.
Business Problem/Description	Business needs to combat the problem of “legacy-ization” – it needs to change existing assets for new assets and skills rapidly. Business needs access to new technology quickly – the innovator’s dilemma (Christensen 2006). Business does not have the skills in-house to transition via Cloud facilitation to modernize business processes.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Innovation Management Portfolio Management Data Center Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Need to modernize infrastructure Need to modernize applications Need to modernize business processes Improve employee skills
Business Risks	Lost competitiveness Lost opportunities due to inability to support new business market Lost skills and resources retention Excessive investment spends on maintaining legacy applications Impact on existing contracts for support, licensing, and services

Rapid Business Capacity & Scale

Company Background	This business needs to scale up its operations rapidly, including increased IT capacity – within a short cycle of days to a few months – to meet specific operating workloads.
Business Problem/Description	There is deficiency of resources and capacity to meet business activity demand to support day and night time peak loads. The company is facing issues such as how to balance compute workloads better; how to optimize costs of operations; and how to follow variable demands of service effectively and efficiently at lower cost.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Remote user desktop services Infinite compute and storage capacity on-demand Access to temporary computing processing for business simulation and transaction processing Business process extensions; e.g., Business Process Outsourcing Access to rapid deployment of existing business process resources including applications and infrastructure
Business Risks	Lost revenue from lack of capacity Lost customers from under-performance of business delivery

Operational Efficiency

Company Background	This company embarked on a strategic initiative to improve its management of development and test infrastructures.
Business Problem/Description	Business requires better management of development and test infrastructure without increasing IT labor and set-up costs.
Actors	Application Development and Delivery Test and Quality Assurance Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Provide management (e.g., automatically or self-service) for business activities that scale up and down operations with associated temporary capacity Provide governance structure and control to manage disparate activities for project-based resources
Business Risks	Opportunities for analysis missed Products and services are late to market Lost customers and market share due to failure to create ease of doing business Excessive complexity in business operations

People Productivity, Workplace Collaboration

Company Background	This company embarked on a strategic initiative to improve its internal and external communications.
Business Problem/Description	The company’s workforce needs to communicate and collaborate more efficiently within the company and with its global network of customers, suppliers, and business partners.
Actors	Operations Management CIO CTO
Business Requirements	Remote user desktop services Improve the internal collaboration requirements (e.g., communication methods) for the business Improve the external collaboration requirements (e.g., customer meetings) for the business Improvements must be easy to implement Improvements must provide secure connections
Business Risks	Improvement implementations costly and time consuming Improvement connections not secure

Development and Test Services

Company Background	This company embarked on a strategic initiative to establish development and test environments for functionality and performance of applications so that businesses can achieve faster time-to-market for their products.
Business Problem/Description	The development and test environments need to be provisioned at short notice and then mothballed or redeployed elsewhere once the development or tests have been conducted. This represents a significant cost in effort and capital expenditures (CAPEX). Virtualization can be used to address this but there is often a demarcation along physical lines across business units, and so the take-up rate is not as large as it should be due to the localized nature of using virtualization.
Actors	Development Teams Test Teams Product SMEs
Business Requirements	Development and test environments need to be provisioned at short notice. Development and test environments need to be mothballed or redeployed elsewhere once tests have been conducted. Time-to-market for products needs to be maintained or decreased.
Business Risks	Time-to-market increases CAPEX costs increase as individual projects or business units need to provision test environments that are segregated

Category: Financial Services

Business Transaction Assurance and Continuity

Company Background	This financial services company is seeking rapid continuity services that assure business operations and associated transactions, particularly during mergers and acquisitions.
Business Problem/Description	This company lacks the necessary in-house skills and resources to support the high degree of sensitive assets and data that is required to support its key business processes. Business Transaction Assurance, Disaster Recovery Planning, and Testing of vital business processes for the same are required to comply with enterprise and regulatory guidelines.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Provide necessary disaster and recovery backup processes Ensure that business activities can be carried out during times of additional complexity, such as mergers and acquisitions Access to rapid deployment of compatible and simple end user services through browser or end-user device
Business Risks	Current business operation is exposed to disaster and recovery backup processes either being insufficient or not in place Lost information contributing to poor business decisions Loss of business continuity across processes and new ventures Significant loss of assets or revenue flow

Business Market Launch

Company Background	This financial services company needs to rapidly introduce new products and/or services into a new or existing marketplace.
Business Problem/Description	There are insufficient resources and capacity for this company to rapidly respond to marketplace needs including seasonal events, although new entrant opportunities have been identified.
Actors	Marketing Management New Product Development Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	New products and/or services require new applications Rapid development and launch of new product and/or service specification Reliable and responsive service provision to support product and service launch Need more capacity for storage of information and to support service delivery
Business Risks	Lost opportunity cost Lost customers from under-performance of business delivery

Secure Business Assurance Services

Company Background	This financial services company is seeking transaction verification and hosting security assurance services.
Business Problem/Description	Security assurance is paramount to business operations, yet there is increased concern over the external service provider’s services. This business lacks internal skills and resources to develop security services. This business seeks to gain Cloud computing elasticity benefits but they are unable to support public service access due to security restrictions. Business legislation requires the company to use its own private secure services to control access to secure business services.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Security and Compliance Data Center Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Private Cloud capability Access, authentication, repudiation Audit and eDiscovery compliance Securely partitioned and isolated Disaster recovery Web security authentication Business continuity
Business Risks	Security and compliance breach Lost business continuity Sovereignty compromise

Category: Government

Research

Company Background	This US Department of Energy research and engineering facility decided to replace the Cray XMP accessed via the Internet with a cluster of UNIX^® servers. This decision was made both on the basis of cost (upgrade versus replace), and a goal of advancing clustering technology.
Business Problem/Description	Researchers and their collaborators were demanding more compute capacity than was available on the existing Cray XMP. The business problem was to equitably allocate compute resources across a mixture of batch and interactive workloads, and to bill each project for the resources used. “Controlled anarchy” was the researchers’ term for the acceptable level of systems management.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Mobile End User IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Equitably allocate the compute resources across a mixture of batch and interactive workloads: · Bill each project for their use of compute resources From a functional standpoint: · Support the then common programming languages to achieve minimum processing performance for typical high-performance computing workloads · Allow users to submit distributed workloads From a non-functional standpoint: · Optimize resource utilization · Keep each project’s usage within its budget · Scale capacity quickly and cheaply
Business Risks	Systems’ management tools and programming models were not sufficiently mature to keep the IT costs within budget.

Productivity

Company Background	This government agency wants to improve employee productivity and reduce end-user costs by leveraging mobile and social communities to improve the quality of business information and knowledge exchange.
Business Problem/Description	This entity must take advantage of lower-cost IT options including rapid delivery of productivity tools to its workforce. The organization contains many mobile workers who regularly need access to services; however, they are unable to invest in dedicated (in-house) mobile services and support. They are also experiencing huge desktop costs and support due to a large user base with many locations and disparate business operations.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Mobile End User IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Business mobility services and support Business productivity requirements to improve community and knowledge development in the organization Reduce end-user costs/charge-back to customers
Business Risks	Inefficiencies in business productivity Technology incompatibility contributing to poor systems performance and downtimes Security issues introduced with remote workforce Dissatisfied customers

Business Utility/Agility

Company Background	This government agency is prone to expanded operations, mergers, and/or acquisitions, and activities that are shrinking the capacity of its information technology (IT).
Business Problem/Description	Current business unit activity has opportunities to create common utility services to better support merger and acquisition activities.
Actors	Program Managers Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Use commodity services to reduce operating costs Rationalize business assets through alternative sourcing of assets Use external transition services to assist consolidation and rationalization of merger and acquisition activity Need more elasticity – access to and rapid deployment of end-user services
Business Risks	Over and under-provisioned capacity Failure to leverage assets to better serve common business services across business agency units Complex asset dependencies remain unresolved Lost customers from underperforming business Excessive costs of infrastructure assets

IT Cost Optimization

Company Background	This agency is conducting activities that are affecting IT capacity. These activities may include operations’ expansion, divestment, or significant mergers and/or acquisitions. The business needs to manage the cost of business operations and seek alternative ways to optimize investments.
Business Problem/Description	Current costs of IT are too expensive – in addition, productivity tools for the workforce are not delivered fast enough to keep up with market demands.
Actors	CTO, CIO, COO Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Order Fulfilment, including Storage System Administrators IT Delivery
Business Requirements	Current investments in business are high and need to be rationalized The business seeks supply cost reductions through alternative methods of service supply on common services Current business unit activity has opportunities to create common utility services to support merger and acquisition activities Accurate, consumption-based charges for services
Business Risks	Complex asset dependencies remain unresolved Excessive costs of infrastructure assets including storage Failure to leverage assets efficiently in order to provide common business services across business partners and enterprise domains

End-User Cost Optimization

Company Background	This business needs to facilitate delivery of new business services to users to improve productivity. It wants to reduce costs of services with rapid deployment of mobile and create better social community experiences to improve access and quality of business information along with improved knowledge exchange.
Business Problem/Description	Current business operation is looking to maximize low-cost IT options to reduce costs and rapidly deliver business productivity tools to its workforce. There are many mobile workers who regularly need access to services on-the-move, but lack the scale to invest in dedicated mobile services and support. In addition, there are huge costs in desktop and support due to a large user base, diverse locations, and disparate business operations.
Actors	CTO, CIO, COO Mobile Users Delivery Teams, including web and application hosting Business Partners
Business Requirements	Provide services and support on-demand to mobile workers Improve the community and knowledge development in the organization Need for large-scale investments in end-user services with high costs and complexity
Business Risks	Business productivity and efficiency decreases Business loses customers from under-performance of business delivery Security issues due to workforce working remotely Incompatible business processes due to IT technology insertion IT complexity increases due to additions to new business process capabilities

Business Growth, Development, Test, and Validation Support

Company Background	This business unit has very elastic processes that require rapid test, validation, and quick solution deployments.
Business Problem/Description	The business has rapid introduction of new products and services with seasonal variation and on-demand needs for assets and resources, yet it faces budget constraints and shortages in IT capacity.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management IT Operations Management Test Management Data Center Management Development Management
Business Requirements	On-demand test service On-demand business change validation Access to development and test services
Business Risks	Over budget on development and test activities Failure to deliver business products and services Lost customers and market share due to failure to deliver customer promises and needs

Category: Telco

Service Delivery

Company Background	This business is seeking to move services to new markets and channels through network-based services, but managed network service enablement is currently not available.
Business Problem/Description	Current business is seeking online shopping and consumer services to sell products and services through mobile, cell, and other network-based services. The communications network is seen as a challenge for extending products and services to a wider range of customers and markets that access network-based channels.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Internet Service Provider (ISP)/Network Service Provider (NSP) Data Center Management IT Operations Management
Business Requirements	Development of self-service and consumer market services to support product delivery and development Transport as a service Network as a service Access to rapid deployment of compatible and simple end-user services through browser or end-user device
Business Risks	Lost market opportunities due to inefficient communications and delivery Network performance issues Lack of experience in managing network-based services

Partner Collaboration

Company Background	This agency needs to facilitate collaboration with a range of partners and customers with no or limited IT resources or funding. There is a large marketplace of individual customers and participants all with common service needs to access business offerings.
Business Problem/Description	High manual workload tasks make each business transaction increasingly less cost-effective with increasing volumes. The business needs to offer common services to a large market that involve interaction of participants.
Actors	Business Procurement Data Warehouse Management Data Center Operations
Business Requirements	The business needs to manage the cost of business operations and seek alternative ways to offer common services Provide social collaboration tools and skills within the business to meet demand Information and services need sharing between participants’ collaboration using a common collaboration process and tool set Control transaction costs
Business Risks	Transaction costs increase Collaboration is not efficient Customers’ and participants’ business is lost

Category: Media & Entertainment

Test Assurance Services

Company Background	This company has rapid introduction of new products and services with seasonal variation on-demand for assets and resources, yet they are often constrained in capacity.
Business Problem/Description	This company has many test and validation procedures to ensure business operations. Test assurance services of business processes need accessing to ensure validation and continuity of services and changes to services. The business introduces many new products and services – continually updating the business portfolio.
Actors	Media Outlets Online Shoppers Data Center Operations
Business Requirements	Business has very elastic processes that need rapid test and validation Business needs to improve costs of complex development and test overhead
Business Risks	Development and test budgets exceeded Business products, services, and delivery are constantly changing Delivery of business products and services fail Lost customers and market share due to failure to deliver customer needs

Category: Health Services

Rapid Deployment

Company Background	This business needs to facilitate new business services to business users to improve productivity experience. It wants to reduce costs of services with rapid deployment to mobile devices. It wants to create social communities to improve access and quality of business information and knowledge exchange.
Business Problem/Description	Current costs of IT options too expensive and productivity tools for workforce not delivered fast enough.
Actors	Healthcare Providers Healthcare Administrators HealthCare Payor/Payee Patients IT Operations
Business Requirements	Operations looking to maximize low-cost IT options to reduce costs and rapidly deliver business productivity tools to its workforce Current business has many mobile workers who regularly need access to services on the move, but lack the scale to invest in dedicated mobile services and support Huge costs in desktop costs and support due to large user base with many locations and disparate business operations
Business Risks	Lost business productivity and efficiency Lost customers from under-performance of business delivery Security issues of workforce working remotely Risk of compatibility of IT technology insertion Increased complexity of IT with additions to new business process capabilities

Category: Pharmaceuticals

Rapid Business Process Extension

Company Background	This business needs to introduce a new business process. The solution can be an extension to the existing applications through use of rapid business process management or a sourced solution from a Cloud supplier or service source forge inventory. Need to rapidly access IT capability not available in current business operations. The solution seeks to source a business process function available from the open market.
Business Problem/Description	The company is currently operating in silos which are causing disconnection between how business and IT resources are shared and coordinated. This is negatively impacting manufacturing and other key business processes. Development and test resources appear to have a deficit in skills to support quality delivery of the new business process.
Actors	Business Operations Controller Business Procurement Management Market Sourcing and Procurement IT Operations Management End Users/Patients/Healthcare Administrators
Business Requirements	Business needs to introduce a workflow to connect different business processes and applications Business needs to introduce a workflow to connect different business applications to improve information quality flow Need to introduce a temporary project administration Need to introduce a temporary development and test environment to develop and deliver a new functional requirement Need to introduce quality management tracking and reporting of business processes cutting across a number of business areas and applications and database sources
Business Risks	Lost customers due to under-performance of business delivery Risk of compatibility of technology insertions Increased complexity of IT Poor quality products and services Increased complexity of IT with additions to new business process capabilities

Category: Distribution

Brand Unification

Company Background	This retail distributor embarked on a strategic initiative to unify its brands worldwide under the company’s name for competitive advantage, and to increase business results by “helping its multiple business units work together more efficiently”.
Business Problem/Description	The company’s workforce needs to communicate and collaborate more efficiently with its global network of customers, suppliers, and business partners in support of a strategic brand unification initiative.
Actors	Suppliers Line of Business (LoB) Leaders Distribution Centers
Business Requirements	Reduce total costs of ownership by: · Transforming the workforce into a globally integrated team · Looking to partners for solutions that may have better capabilities · Leveraging existing IT infrastructure without burdening IT resources Be innovative without compromising security, reliability, or privacy
Business Risks	Unmet business performance objectives Poor partner selection and product service offerings Delayed order fulfilment cycles Inconsistent service offerings Security, reliability, and privacy compromised

Innovation – New Ventures

Company Background	This distribution company is small to medium-sized with a broad and diverse customer base. This was a new, innovative undertaking.
Business Problem/Description	The company needed a business model that was responsive and flexible to diverse customer demands. Current processes were reported as co-location with personal management of purchasing, configuring, and ongoing maintenance of hardware, software, and operating systems. The process was time-consuming, costly, and appears labor-intensive. The company needed provisioning and de-provisioning of servers in minutes, instead of its current turnaround rate of days.
Actors	Internet/Web Users COO & Operations Staff Data Center Staff & Management
Business Requirements	The company was challenged to scale their business in a cost-effective and timely manner in order to achieve customer satisfaction targets that optimized costs to the customer and the company as a whole. Two business performance indicators were to: · Provide spam filtering at a low price to consumers with little or no venture capital funding · Achieve 99% spam blocking rates with continued operations as a cost-effective company
Business Risks	Data center requirements were reported as “in flux” and at risk in manageability and implementation. This caused concern regarding the company’s overall support capabilities of this new undertaking.

Category: Energy & Utilities

Green Footprint

Company Background	Business needs to facilitate all options to improve green footprint emissions of its operations. Currently, business has expectations for rapid growth in IT services demand causing “drift” in its workloads and emissions from increased power consumption.
Business Problem/Description	Current business operation investments internally have reached limits in green cost reductions and are looking for other options and sources.
Actors	Data Center Management and Operations LoB Leaders Sustainability SMEs
Business Requirements	The use of shared services to maximize utilization is exploring virtualization and other options for reducing the carbon footprint.
Business Risks	Lack of carbon reduction compliance Lost image in marketplace over green credentials Lost business due to inability to offer green services

Category: Higher Education

Virtual Learning

Company Background	Distance learning is an essential component of public community colleges that are engines for workforce development for local economy. In recent years, public community colleges are adversely affected by state budget cuts. These college campuses are looking for opportunities to cut cost without affecting delivery channels and student enrollment.
Business Problem/Description	Virtual learning environment is one of the common delivery methods in higher education. Each of the community colleges in a state maintains its own set of applications and infrastructure for virtual learning environment duplicating IT cost for each of the campuses and college systems.
Actors	Faculty Student Instructional Technology Specialists
Business Requirements	The use of shared environments by different community college campuses in a state for delivery of virtual education to certain population in the community as an alternative to classroom teaching.
Business Risks	Lack of insufficient state funding will lead to elimination of distant learning programs Shutting down a delivery method often times which is the only viable learning delivery method to a part of the population who are engines for the local workforce Loss of student enrollment to online schools that specialize and are pure players in distant learning and virtual education delivery

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