Improving the value of cloud investments with Microsoft Azure

A holistic approach to the cloud requires a platform-native approach

Our survey found that successful cloud-powered companies do not take a passive and measured approach to the cloud — essentially backing into it. Rather, they should develop a business case for cloud and commit to a holistic strategy that’s focused on realizing specific goals.

As organizations migrate workloads to the cloud, a holistic approach involves choosing the most effective and efficient path, deciding what needs to be modernized within the migration process, recalibrating required modern cloud-native skills, processes and solutions, and aligning business needs with the most suitable enabling technology. This requires cross-functional leadership to work together to achieve their cloud strategy goals.

Cohesive leadership confirms that the enterprise is in sync and leveraging technologies that are ideally suited for their future-ready platform, whenever and wherever possible. For example, as part of modernizing applications, platform-native solutions like Microsoft Power Platform, a low-code set of tools that delivers advanced data analysis, automation and AI, increase return on investment (ROI). The result is a flexible and secure platform that supports innovation at scale.

Not only do these companies add a provider that can deliver a seamless migration to the cloud, but they also put innovation at the center of their business. This relationship unlocks elasticity, performance, reliability and security.

This approach fundamentally changes the equation. With Microsoft Cloud powered by Azure, it's possible to embrace advanced AI and analytics and machine learning through copilots and enable secure generative AI across the enterprise with Azure OpenAI Service. It’s even possible to accelerate Internet of Things (IoT) and sustainability initiatives in more agile and flexible ways — with energy efficient cloud-native apps that remain secure and conform to compliance requirements.

Organizations can become more efficient, automated and predictive. A new era of innovation emerges.

C-suite collaboration shouldn’t be limited to the techies

Much has been said about the link between strong leadership and successful cloud migrations. Across the board, cloud-powered companies find that their CIOs are strongly aligned with the CISO (87%), CDO (87%) and CEO (85%). Yet true innovation isn’t limited to the technology group.

Microsoft Cloud offers solutions that integrate across multiple lines of business, including critical finance and human resources functions. It incorporates digital native capabilities that deliver deep and broad insight into the organization — and beyond, including connecting the physical and digital worlds. By connecting teams in real time, people can become more aligned and focused on a unified goal.

For example, cloud-powered finance teams can track operational costs in real time, monitor labor, and view billing and cash flows across the supply chain. The same data can help a human resources department spot skill gaps, and marketing and sales departments remain in sync with product updates and deliveries while gaining campaign ROI visibility quicker. Operations can view sourcing options to balance costs and risks, and sustainability leaders can take proactive steps to manage their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Decarbonization and net zero aspirations become measurable and actionable strategies. In the end, cloud-powered organizations can leverage a single source of truth that links financials, supply chain, commerce, manufacturing, HR and other entities.

Your data and AI strategy requires confidence

Today, no one questions the need for a strategy that can leverage data across an organization. The problem is putting that strategy into practice.

Addressing the challenge raises a few key questions: Is the data you rely on sound enough to serve as the basis for critical business decision-making? Is the data trustworthy, analytics-ready and delivered at the right time and place? Does the executive suite support the plan? When AI enters the picture, how prepared is your organization to integrate these technologies into your modern data strategy? Are you confident that your AI models are using data in the most appropriate way, and that human oversight is being performed at the proper level?

Business leaders understand this reality. Nearly half (44%) of executives report that their companies are planning to embark on data modernization initiatives in 2024, according to PwC research. The reason? They want to take advantage of more advanced digital capabilities, particularly generative AI.

The most appropriate platform is essential — go beyond the migration to intentionally modernize along the way. Azure AI, Azure ML Studio and Azure OpenAI run as native components within Azure. This framework provides a holistic set of services and tools that improve confidence in decision-making, without a need to integrate third-party solutions. The Azure platform is highly scalable and elastic by default. Microsoft Fabric delivers a complete analytics platform with a lake-centric approach. The result, for the business user and query, is a globally distributed, low-latency multimodal database with automated scaling. This environment serves as the digital backbone for integrated enterprise data.

The sum of these components and capabilities, including Azure OpenAI Service, adds up to an advanced platform capable of leveraging large language models with contextualized data. This results in faster and better business outcomes. This platform allows organizations to plug in data and adapt technologies to suit their specific needs — all while delivering fast, flexible, consumption-based pricing and built-in security — your enterprise data remains yours and is never exposed to the public.

Lesson learned: The cloud journey requires trust and controls

The early days of cloud adoption were more than a bit … cloudy. Many organizations failed to approach the task from a well-planned or highly organized leadership perspective. Making matters worse, many organizations merely lifted and shifted into the cloud and backed into a cloud strategy that lacked alignment to business outcomes.

The speed of a lift-and-shift “success" obscures from the reality that this approach often results in increased costs and risks, weak security and a lack of controls. This, in turn, led to cloud waste that extended into the billions of dollars collectively. Hindsight is 20/20, of course. Cloud-powered organizations have learned lessons from these early mistakes. They are now embedding governance and AI-based oversight across their cloud operations. This helps to make sure that resources are being consumed and enhanced all the time.

The results can be impressive. Cloud-powered companies are more than twice as mature as laggards in regard to controls and governance operations. They gain deep and broad visibility, ratchet up automation and they’re better equipped to spot risks. Moving forward, trust and transparency are key, and both are essential for organizations that require confidence in their data, applications and decision-making abilities.

Streamline your journey

Today, cloud-powered organizations of many shapes and sizes are often leveraging Azure and the Microsoft Cloud as their future-ready innovation platform. Their cloud strategy is helping them solve their most complex business problems and even reinvent business models.

PwC’s long-standing alliance with Microsoft is built on the combination of our deep Microsoft Cloud experience and decades of successful transformations helping organizations modernize operations and reimagine their businesses, with the goal of streamlining their journey to the cloud.

By going beyond the migration, by modernizing as part of your cloud strategy, business innovation and transformation are within reach.