Author: Mark Schwartz

To be honest, I’ve never liked the distinction between building and buying when it comes to software. Of course you shoud buy rather than build – if, somehow, there’s a third-party product that does exactly what you need, has the same roadmap for future development as your company will require, meets all your security needs, […]

To make the most of the cloud, most organizations need to change processes, governance models, and technical architectures. But that doesn’t mean there’s no value to simply “lifting and shifting” applications, which can be a great first step in the cloud journey. In keeping with agile ways of working, it’s a great idea to manage […]

Most large IT organizations, at some point, have to make decisions about what to centralize and what to decentralize. Some organizations decide to create a shared services group; others look to centralize governance over security and architecture, or to centralize procurement and financial management. When done poorly, the centralized functions can become frustrating bottlenecks, and […]

Business Cases for Cloud Migration I’ve seen some companies struggle to assemble and vet a business case for the cloud. Intuitively, they know the investment is solid. But they get bogged down in projecting their infrastructure needs and have difficulty connecting their cloud activities to broader returns on investment across the enterprise. Fortunately, there’s a […]

In this guest post John Naylon, AWS Principal SA for Telecoms, talks about path dependence—the idea that solutions are sometimes subject to historical accident—and why the AWS notion of “reinvention” in the cloud is a possible solution. While his examples are drawn from the telecom industry, the point is an important one for all of […]

LinkedIn reports that hiring for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) roles has increased more than 90% since 2019, as companies expand their investments in ensuring that their organizations, products, and communications reflect the diversity of the customers they serve. DEI is also a growing regulatory concern—particularly with regard to pay equity. In the US, most […]

While the term digital transformation has become slippery and overused, it nevertheless remains a priority of many business and technology executives. In this blog post, Dr. Saša Baškarada, a senior transformation architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Professional Services, explains the drivers of digital transformation as well as its three interdependent stages. The resulting conceptual […]

  Creating a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) is often a great way to jumpstart a company’s migration to the cloud and to guide the migration with an eye on best practices and long-term suitability. The company sets up a team of experts on cloud best practices and uses their skills and their passion for […]

In my previous post I explained why environmental, social, and corporate governance (or ESG) has become such an important concern for enterprises; why it is a strategic consideration; why it rises to the level of the board of directors’ attention; and how it differs from corporate social responsibility (CSR) in that it requires the company’s […]

Environmental and social governance, or ESG, is a growing concern for business leaders—and for government regulators, investors, and standards bodies. Recent events have only increased the business world’s focus on ESG: worker wellness has become a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; […]