Once synonymous with outdated systems and legacy IT, today several well-known banks are instead leading the charge for cloud adoption. In fact, NAB recently made it their somewhat stunning long-term goal to become 100% on cloud. Other banks and financial institutions are rethinking their objections and aren’t far behind. Of course, the possible benefits have long been understood—cloud includes lofty promises for scalability, security, and accessibility. For banks, however, the dual pitfalls of unexpected cloud costs and complexity loom in the background and can reduce confidence in shifting critical data and services out of the data center.
It’s not enough for banks adopting cloud-at-scale to make informed guesses. Like any enterprise, can easily lose control of cloud budgets, especially when wrangling multiple cloud providers and environments. Fortunately, however, some banks are leveraging their domain expertise to realise the value of a new breed of cloud expert-cloud economists. So, what are cloud economists and why are they becoming key contributors in the effort to digitally transforming banks and financial institutions?
The new breed of CFO?
Think of cloud economists as brokers between banks they represent and the many cloud vendors, service providers and data centres out there. Like their financial counterparts, cloud economists live in two worlds: they’re acutely aware of their bank’s financial goals and metrics of success, but with deep, up-to-date knowledge of the capabilities of different clouds environments, provider cost models, and the technicalities needed to bring the bank’s aspirations to reality.
As any technology team’s dependency on cloud grows, the operational model comes to resemble an internal economy of its own. It becomes an interconnected ecosystem of variables, inputs and demands, but with highly variable cost of production and value to the consumer, (the business). Cloud is never “done” by design—it intends to be nebulous, adaptable, and quick to satisfy technical imagination. To do this, it can’t simultaneously provide cookie-cutter packaged solutions for every organisation type or simple, predictable cost management.
Employees expect more cloud productivity and collaboration tools, while customers demand connected applications and services, sometimes surprise scaling costs to unsustainable heights. True, cloud economists can be vital in the traditional IT role of managing cost, but more importantly they meet the more critical business need of knowing which cloud platform services ideally meet the bank’s myriad of short and long-term needs. They keep things lean for the CFO, while also setting cloud free to be a true competitive differentiator. Cloud economists are uniquely able to understand and balance these competing requirements, optimising cloud to meet as many needs as possible. They discover and recommend effective paths to breakthrough and profitable results.
Another advantage of adding cloud economists to bank technology teams is offloading executive demands at a critical time in the industry. Increasingly, the CFO can’t manage the bank’s critical financial health and portfolio, while also learning the difference between AWS and Azure. Likewise, the CTO already has their hands full realising useful digital transformation while reconciling legacy infrastructure. Cloud economists can speed communication and leadership decision-making for the bank’s cloud-based future.
The bridge between worlds
To succeed in their role, cloud economists will depend on a distinct set of skills. Unlike SysAdmins or developers, cloud economists generally aren’t from a background of coding or network skills. Their foundation is a clear understanding of the strengths and limitations of different clouds after the sales period is over and production begins.
For instance, if a bank is considering multi-cloud, they can recommend AWS, Azure, Google, etc. for specific workload demands. Think DevOps vs. IT Ops vs. periodic reinvestment vs. long-term stability. This is especially true for technology new to some banks, like cloud-native, open-source application architectures, and containerisation. In short, cloud economists know what IT needs, why they need it, and how to obtain it, but also how to help leadership assure they reduce time-to-value in a financially sustainable manner.
What may come as a surprise is that while cloud economists gather and analyze a great deal of data, it’s not primarily financial metrics in spreadsheets and presentations. Cloud economists also tend to be masters of observability and monitoring.
Here, their role resembles more that of a manufacturing financial analyst. They continually pour over real-world cloud and on-premises infrastructure utilisation data drawn from the team’s infrastructure monitoring tools, form projections, and make decisions based on the unique reality of each enterprise. Which cloud solution best supports capacity burst deployments? What cloud services do we really need? What should we buy vs. build? What is the strategic goal of our multi-cloud environments? The cloud economist’s job is to anneal disparate metrics and signals into actionable, achievable steps. They translate the metrics of operations investment into clear dollars and cents talk management and stakeholders can understand.
Getting them into your ranks
How does one hire a cloud economist? The fact is that, right now, there is a shortage that’s unlikely to suddenly disappear. One possible avenue for financial institutions with deep pockets- do whatever it takes to attract cloud consultations with a demonstrated history of successful relationships within the finance industry. Candidates would be familiar with both the technology and financial needs of banking institutions. For many banks however, there’s a home-grown solution. They raise and develop cloud economists internally.
Look for IT employees with a curiosity for value and cloud operations. That’s an important distinction. Like any economist, they’re not merely limiting, reducing, minimising, or eliminating, etc. costs – something which can easily lead to stagnation. Instead, they find undiscovered value in people, processes, and technology. Going further, they model multiple potential business outcomes in consideration of varying hypothetical technology decisions. In many ways they are internal business development analysts, not traditional IT managers.
More than monitoring and rolling up cloud usage reports, they point out underutilised or orphaned resources, and identify new opportunities to delight users and pull ahead of competitors. Business analysts and finance executives who have overlapping interests in financial needs and technology are also prime candidates. Sharp IT leaders may also pair these discipline—an IT and finance employee—and task them with finding ways to maximise existing cloud resources, while meeting cost objectives. The results of this partnership may surprise you.
It’s important for banks and financial institutions to begin the search for their future cloud economists now, as their use of cloud platforms and services are rapidly expanding. Having a trusted expert to make smart decisions early doesn’t simply keep operations profitable and stakeholders happy. It assures the bank’s future by untangling cloud hype and vendor promises to turn contract complexity into a clear path to success.
