There are times that come along in history that literally change everything. Our current situation has historical comparisons but for this generation, as the lights dim on the greatest generation, this is the seminal challenge, not just about living, but surviving. When the dust settles, and it will, because it always does, there will be those individuals and companies that made it through, and those that didn’t. On a human level it’s interesting to watch yoga teachers grapple with Zoom technology, knowing that their practice will never be the same. In some respects, it will be better, more widely distributed, and even in a very un-yogic sense, more profitable.
The same will be true for the corporate world, and I suspect that those firms that had relied on technology to further their interests will be better served than those that did not. This will be the case for those firms who had migrated their data, software programs and algorithms to the “Cloud”. Those companies would have had less to worry about in managing individual data centers, hardware configurations, network fallback scenarios because all of that would have been managed for them, and they could concentrate on what matters most: their customers.
Getting to the Cloud seems like an easy decision, but without a hard look at how you do things, it can be a wasteful effort in terms of cost, manpower and focus. Without the proper governance models and processes, without the right strategy, without the right management focus, the value of migrating to the cloud will be substantially less. In some respects, these are standard program management techniques that can be applied, but there are some twists, especially when you throw in the regulatory and compliance issues that must be addressed.
Those regulatory concerns are multiplied depending upon what industry your firm is in. Suppose you are a financial services firm? How do you handle back-up and disaster recovery? What are your requirements in reporting outages? Are there specific rules that apply to you that are handled in a bespoke way in your own data center, that must be looked at and adapted when you move to the Cloud. It truly requires a holistic review to make sure that every aspect of the move is addressed. But the good news is once you do move, you can focus on your customer needs, rather than worry about core infrastructure issues applicable to only you.
Global Markets Advisory Group has a team of veteran professionals who have spent their careers helping firms meet their regulatory and compliance obligations while implementing large scale technology projects like moving to the Cloud. With GMAG’s recent additions to their team they have strengthened an already highly experienced team by adding expertise in the technology and project management and governance areas.
Is it time to make the move? Probably was about two years ago, but this virus changes everything, so now is the time to review your systems and processes and start the thought migration that this has to happen. How do you do that? You need to measure your organizations’ readiness, understand where the gaps are in your processes, build a plan to mitigate the risks and aim to achieve maximum value for your enterprise. In addition, make sure you have the best people you can to get to guide you there. The sooner you do, the better prepared for the future you will be.
Lou Pastina is a managing member of Global Markets Advisory Group. For more information about them go to https://www.glblmkt.com.
The views represented in this commentary are those of its author and do not reflect the opinion of Traders Magazine, Markets Media Group or its staff. Traders Magazine welcomes reader feedback on this column and on all issues relevant to the institutional trading community.
