For many Boards, the pandemic has catalysed broad business change by accelerating digital transformation initiatives. The availability of cloud computing has democratised access to technology, and businesses of all shapes and sizes have seized on this opportunity to: increase revenue, margin, and profit; enter new markets and launch new products and services; delight, excite and get closer to their customers; and become more operationally efficient, increasing productivity, cutting waste, and reducing costs.

One of the biggest challenges for organizations that adopt the cloud is aligning their development spend with business initiatives while managing and optimizing spend. That’s Joe Daly’s job at Nationwide, where he began overseeing the insurer’s cloud migration more than two years ago. I spoke to Joe about how this shift has created greater transparency, flexibility, and efficiency as we recorded it as a podcast.

When evaluating an application’s cloud migration potential, there’s far more to consider than simple TCO calculations. From peak CPU and RAM requirements to often overlooked decommissioning costs, organisations need a comprehensive approach. The smartest strategy? Start by building a detailed business case that clearly communicates both cost considerations and business value to your key stakeholders. This broader perspective prevents the common mistake of focusing solely on TCO, which misses crucial elements like cloud adoption expenses, decommissioning costs, and the substantial business benefits cloud can deliver. For a thorough cost analysis, you’ll want to examine three critical areas: migration costs, ongoing operational expenses, and decommissioning expenditures.

. @mariothomas at @awscloud explains how they're helping helping customers control costs and map out their cloud consumption. #IaaS #AWS #reInvent #TechNativeTV pic.twitter.com/wyMQxSAWIp

— TechNative (@TechNative) December 2, 2019

Siliconexion sat down with me today to talk about cloud migration and what you need to take into account before embarking on a business transformation enabled by the cloud.

Retaiil Week wrote an aritlce this week about technology companies and how they have turned themselves into platforms. I was interviewed to give the Amazon viewpoint on this.

Whilst in Hong Kong for the AWS Transformation Day, some of my AWS colleagues and I sat down with Edge Markets (a publication in Malaysia) to talk about AI and the power of the cloud in helping businesses adopt AI and ML to accelerate business outcomes. You can read the whole interview here.

Earlier this week I presented at a Gartner round table for CFO’s in Atlanta. The topic was how organisations use the cloud to transform and how the value from that transformation is expressed to the business. My presentation can be viewed on the Gartner website here (registration required).

So while I was working in Hong Kong this week, I wandered out during one of the downpours that happen at this time of year here and managed to catch lighting hitting the buildings on the other side of the harbour.

ZDNet visited AWS today and sat down with me to discuss the steps for creating a successful cloud adoption business case.