Richard Davies, Vice President and Managing Director, Leading Edge Forum
If there is a simple mantra that can describe the direction that many of our clients are pursuing, it would be this: virtualize, consumerize, and reposition. Virtualization is the key to the agile, variable cost models needed for today’s demanding business climate. Consumerization will give employees the tools they need, and provide the cost savings companies demand. Once both virtualization and consumerization are in place, the enterprise IT function can be repositioned to create new value for the firm. In this kick-off session, David will describe this long term Enterprise IT vision, and the state of reality today.
In this session, we will examine the basic economic concepts behind cloud computing and whether misconceptions have arisen – does cloud save you money? Will it be green? We will then look at the development of the cloud marketplace and identify general patterns that are emerging and what these mean for the future. Finally, we will examine some of the challenges that cloud brings, how fast the industry is developing and ask the question “how do I choose who to partner with in the cloud?”
The cloud and emerging services and protocols are allowing a shift to User Centric Identity, which will in the early stages provide an advantage to companies who understand that modern consumers require Trust, Respect, Usability & Utility, Security, and Transparency. Adrian will explore these aspects and signal early actions that can be taken by attendees.
Kate will discuss the role of cloud computing in government IT by providing an introduction to the UK Cabinet Office’s G-Cloud and App Store project. She will outline what the public sector hopes to gain from a cloud approach, their view of the cloud stack compared with the NIST view, an overview of the proposed G-Cloud technical architecture, and how to deliver the benefits of cloud while still meeting government’s stringent security requirements. She will close with a brief look at government cloud initiatives in other countries.
In this presentation, Bob will describe how, over the last two years, Channel 4 has embraced Cloud Computing and seen it grow into the preferred platform for the delivery of high-performance websites in an environment where an 'on air event' has the potential to trigger massive surges in online traffic. He will focus on both the technical and non-technical challenges which had to be overcome, and outline where C4 is looking to leverage Cloud Computing during the next year or so.
Unilever is passionate about its consumers and is constantly looking for insight into the way they live, the way they shop and the way they interact with our products. Supporting this quest for insight requires the IT function to innovate at a pace and scale that has never been required of us previously. In this session, Warren will discuss Unilever’s approach to cloud, give examples of what has worked well, what has failed and the rules we have placed upon ourselves that help us do more, fail faster and win bigger.
Extending on the economic concepts behind cloud computing, we will introduce a framework to explain the constant change any organization faces. Using this, we will then examine many of the current struggles of modern businesses – for example, IT alignment – before showing why no ‘one size fits all’ solution exists. Developing further with examples from the cloud computing industry, we will then introduce a new pattern which embeds lifecycle and change into an organization and promises to solve the age old paradox of innovation versus efficiency which any firm must face.