THIS IS AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY QUESTION Self-service in the cloud Finance wants numbers now. Where to find them? A gr
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2022 9:06 am
THIS IS AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY QUESTION
Self-service in the cloud Finance wants numbers now. Where to find them? A growing pharmaceutical company with operations in several countries wanted to make it easier for business leaders to access financial data without having to ask analysts to retrieve reports. The idea wasn’t to do an end-run around anyone, but to empower Finance to get data to the business more quickly. Business leaders needed to be able to evaluate financial data fast—not just to enable better planning and forecasting, but also to make change happen. When Finance began looking at analytics tools that would improve forecast performance, they realized they needed help to find and implement a solution.
Self-service in the cloud
What happened next
Working with Deloitte, Finance leaders decided they needed a performance-based dashboard that lived in the cloud. After that initial determination was made, they turned their attention to the firm’s corporate budgeting model. That led to a high-level roadmap to implement the dashboard design, as well as contingency plans for near-termimprovements and fixes. The company chose a cloud provider that specialized in softwaresolutions to support the Finance function, as well as analytics. One specific goal was to democratize analytics, enabling employees across the organization to gain accurateinsights more quickly.
The tool kit
This company chose to start the dash boarding process in a single country, with a group that could learn fast. It built a multi-faceted, multitalented team with the goal of helping business units in other nations do the same. Essential to the process was a flexible cloud solution that allowed easy access to analytics and reporting capabilities. The idea was toallow any user to gain quick access to data without a ton of training—and it worked.
A state agency invests in a datamanagementtransformationandmakes amove tocloudpay off
Moving to cloud is a growing imperative for government agencies—especially those at the statelevel. With any shift to the cloud comes the potential for benefits such as greater speed of business, reduced operating costs, IT simplicity, and enhanced security, which are all key for public sector organizations today.
For one state agency charged with fiscal responsibilities, cloud emerged as a central focus when its leaders sought to tame the complexity associated with human resources (HR) and payroll data whilemaintaining accountability and integrity. Done right, the move would give stakeholders greater access to data and bolster reliability, optimize costs, and provide scalability to support growth at the same time.
Deloitte Cloud
In particular, the agency encountered growingpains with its existing platform, which wasoversized, high-cost, and aging. As a result, theteam couldn’t move the data as is, or freely, in anyother platforms. The choice they faced: Over come budget constraints and invest in a major capital improvement project for current infrastructure or make a more strategic and cost-effective move to cloud.
The challenge? Understanding the options anddefining a path for an effective move. Scalabilityand costs were important considerations, but thecomplexities around cloud architecture presentedchallenges for the organization. Skill sets were also a key focus in planning a move to cloud—given the agency’s reliance on specialized skills formaintaining its existing databases.
The wins
Despite a clear goal to make cloud the foundation for mission-critical HR data, the organization needed a well-marked blueprint for building that foundation—and a team of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and cloud transformation leading specialists to help make it real. The state agency teamed up with Deloitte to plan and execute a move to a new Amazon Web Services (AWS)Cloud environment, bringing along HR and payroll data for thousands of state employees. Working together, theorganizations created a road map for the state agency to migrate to AWS infrastructure powered by Intel®Xeon® Scalable processors. Intel-powered instances are optimized for SAP® workload and are reliable, were theright size for the need, and are SAP certified.
The project team generated a detailed playbook for the agency to use for its ongoing journey to the cloud. It encompassed migration and process requirements for data, applications, and networks, addressing needs across development, workloads, testing, quality assurance, production, and security.
Armed with this detailed strategy, the agency moved confidently to migrate its SAP payroll and reporting system to AWS, while significantly improving performance over its previous onsite platform. They reduced payroll runtimes byas much as 60% while also reducing labor needs for database management. The initial move from on premises to AWS occurred during a 12-hour technical cutoverwindow, using SAP export/import methods customized to agency requirements.
In planning and then making the move, the agency and Deloitte worked across organizational borders to developconsensus and make sure that any new cloud landscape would support the agency as needed. Along with theagency, Deloitte collaborated with other organizations, including the state IT department, to help ensure that the project would meet strict technology and procedural protocols for state- maintained data and result in minimaldisruption.
Deloitte also brought its long-standing experience with cloud and SAP solutions running on the AWS Cloud, and powered by the Intel Xeon Scalable platform, to bear. They helped fine- tune the database for the applications, adhere to strict Intel, AWS, and SAP technical standards, and create a new cloud landscape aligned with theagency’s business processes.
With the first wave of its move complete, and a detailed migration template in place, the agency is well positioned to extend its cloud journey. They can scale readily and shift additional systems to the cloud as needed in the future. The ongoing transformation also should allow the agency to take advantage of additional AWS capabilities in the cloud, including services for integration and intelligent automation. Scalability to support growth of data and the organization’s SAP payroll workload. Reduced labor needs and dependence on specialized database and hardware skills. A solid foundation and blueprint for moving additional applications to the cloud. Lower total cost of operations, moving from a CapEx to an OpEx model. Greater system availability for payroll functions .Faster overall application and payroll runtimes achieved by database powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Access to additional cloud managed services capabilities to support ongoing maintenance and services
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As you review the business information value chain, consider the rapid growth of cloud technology. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a variety of cloud computing services and has surpassed over 1 million customers, which include individuals, corporations, and the government. AWS’ customers include Facebook, Netflix, and BBC News. Companies are moving away from traditional data centers to leveraging the cloud through service providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Google, etc. The cloud offers a reduction in overhead costs for corporations as well as reduced resources for maintaining the data centers. Read through the two case studies provided by Deloitte. Assume you are a leader of a large global shipping company. Would you recommend leveraging cloud services to support your business operations? Answer the below questions as you consider the services you may use and the impact they would have on your organizations. Be sure to clearly support your argument justifying your position.
What cloud services would you choose to use, or why would you consider not using cloud services?
What benefits and challenges would you expect to encounter?
How would leveraging cloud computing impact the business information value chain?
Self-service in the cloud Finance wants numbers now. Where to find them? A growing pharmaceutical company with operations in several countries wanted to make it easier for business leaders to access financial data without having to ask analysts to retrieve reports. The idea wasn’t to do an end-run around anyone, but to empower Finance to get data to the business more quickly. Business leaders needed to be able to evaluate financial data fast—not just to enable better planning and forecasting, but also to make change happen. When Finance began looking at analytics tools that would improve forecast performance, they realized they needed help to find and implement a solution.
Self-service in the cloud
What happened next
Working with Deloitte, Finance leaders decided they needed a performance-based dashboard that lived in the cloud. After that initial determination was made, they turned their attention to the firm’s corporate budgeting model. That led to a high-level roadmap to implement the dashboard design, as well as contingency plans for near-termimprovements and fixes. The company chose a cloud provider that specialized in softwaresolutions to support the Finance function, as well as analytics. One specific goal was to democratize analytics, enabling employees across the organization to gain accurateinsights more quickly.
The tool kit
This company chose to start the dash boarding process in a single country, with a group that could learn fast. It built a multi-faceted, multitalented team with the goal of helping business units in other nations do the same. Essential to the process was a flexible cloud solution that allowed easy access to analytics and reporting capabilities. The idea was toallow any user to gain quick access to data without a ton of training—and it worked.
A state agency invests in a datamanagementtransformationandmakes amove tocloudpay off
Moving to cloud is a growing imperative for government agencies—especially those at the statelevel. With any shift to the cloud comes the potential for benefits such as greater speed of business, reduced operating costs, IT simplicity, and enhanced security, which are all key for public sector organizations today.
For one state agency charged with fiscal responsibilities, cloud emerged as a central focus when its leaders sought to tame the complexity associated with human resources (HR) and payroll data whilemaintaining accountability and integrity. Done right, the move would give stakeholders greater access to data and bolster reliability, optimize costs, and provide scalability to support growth at the same time.
Deloitte Cloud
In particular, the agency encountered growingpains with its existing platform, which wasoversized, high-cost, and aging. As a result, theteam couldn’t move the data as is, or freely, in anyother platforms. The choice they faced: Over come budget constraints and invest in a major capital improvement project for current infrastructure or make a more strategic and cost-effective move to cloud.
The challenge? Understanding the options anddefining a path for an effective move. Scalabilityand costs were important considerations, but thecomplexities around cloud architecture presentedchallenges for the organization. Skill sets were also a key focus in planning a move to cloud—given the agency’s reliance on specialized skills formaintaining its existing databases.
The wins
Despite a clear goal to make cloud the foundation for mission-critical HR data, the organization needed a well-marked blueprint for building that foundation—and a team of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and cloud transformation leading specialists to help make it real. The state agency teamed up with Deloitte to plan and execute a move to a new Amazon Web Services (AWS)Cloud environment, bringing along HR and payroll data for thousands of state employees. Working together, theorganizations created a road map for the state agency to migrate to AWS infrastructure powered by Intel®Xeon® Scalable processors. Intel-powered instances are optimized for SAP® workload and are reliable, were theright size for the need, and are SAP certified.
The project team generated a detailed playbook for the agency to use for its ongoing journey to the cloud. It encompassed migration and process requirements for data, applications, and networks, addressing needs across development, workloads, testing, quality assurance, production, and security.
Armed with this detailed strategy, the agency moved confidently to migrate its SAP payroll and reporting system to AWS, while significantly improving performance over its previous onsite platform. They reduced payroll runtimes byas much as 60% while also reducing labor needs for database management. The initial move from on premises to AWS occurred during a 12-hour technical cutoverwindow, using SAP export/import methods customized to agency requirements.
In planning and then making the move, the agency and Deloitte worked across organizational borders to developconsensus and make sure that any new cloud landscape would support the agency as needed. Along with theagency, Deloitte collaborated with other organizations, including the state IT department, to help ensure that the project would meet strict technology and procedural protocols for state- maintained data and result in minimaldisruption.
Deloitte also brought its long-standing experience with cloud and SAP solutions running on the AWS Cloud, and powered by the Intel Xeon Scalable platform, to bear. They helped fine- tune the database for the applications, adhere to strict Intel, AWS, and SAP technical standards, and create a new cloud landscape aligned with theagency’s business processes.
With the first wave of its move complete, and a detailed migration template in place, the agency is well positioned to extend its cloud journey. They can scale readily and shift additional systems to the cloud as needed in the future. The ongoing transformation also should allow the agency to take advantage of additional AWS capabilities in the cloud, including services for integration and intelligent automation. Scalability to support growth of data and the organization’s SAP payroll workload. Reduced labor needs and dependence on specialized database and hardware skills. A solid foundation and blueprint for moving additional applications to the cloud. Lower total cost of operations, moving from a CapEx to an OpEx model. Greater system availability for payroll functions .Faster overall application and payroll runtimes achieved by database powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Access to additional cloud managed services capabilities to support ongoing maintenance and services
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you review the business information value chain, consider the rapid growth of cloud technology. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a variety of cloud computing services and has surpassed over 1 million customers, which include individuals, corporations, and the government. AWS’ customers include Facebook, Netflix, and BBC News. Companies are moving away from traditional data centers to leveraging the cloud through service providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Google, etc. The cloud offers a reduction in overhead costs for corporations as well as reduced resources for maintaining the data centers. Read through the two case studies provided by Deloitte. Assume you are a leader of a large global shipping company. Would you recommend leveraging cloud services to support your business operations? Answer the below questions as you consider the services you may use and the impact they would have on your organizations. Be sure to clearly support your argument justifying your position.
What cloud services would you choose to use, or why would you consider not using cloud services?
What benefits and challenges would you expect to encounter?
How would leveraging cloud computing impact the business information value chain?