How do you go about addressing individual resistance to cloud?

Cloud IT Strategy & Roadmap Business Relationships

2k views2 Upvotes31 Comments

Head of Cyber Security in Manufacturing, 501 - 1,000 employees

Cost transparency when doing the comparision. Many companies working in highly regulated markets think self hosted is cheaper and they can have better control over it. Unfortunately this is in many cases not true considering bc/dr, accreditations and certifications. Fuerther many funcionalities which in the cloud can be easily setup, take onprem month to years to find a solution which fits, sometimes you need to change the complete underlying hardware and foremost the right people to do the setup and to have it maintained over time.

Director of IT in Manufacturing, 201 - 500 employees

I believe that each case should be analyzed with a cost/benefits approach. After that, the decision should be easier. Going to the cloud is not mandatory and each business case is different.

CEO in Software, 11 - 50 employees

At this stage of Cloud development resistance is most often associated with fear of job change, because no one in IT should still need an explanation on cloud. If they do, there is something wrong with the leadership.

If there are specific issues that individuals have with cloud (cost, complexity, security, lockin, etc) they can be overcome with appropriate incentives and training.

My perspective on affecting change is that the individual or team that is still hesitating on cloud, likely hasn’t been getting the regular reassurance from leadership that their jobs are made safer when they adapt and try new things, not the other way around. If the team has fear that moving what they do to the cloud means their job is going away or that if they make a mistake in the process of moving they’ll get fired, then they will stay frozen in place.

Lastly, the best way beyond good leadership to get people to adopt new solutions (I.e., Cloud) is to have well thought out discussions on the topic. It should not be a “all cloud or nothing” approach. It must be honest on how and where cloud will improve operations and allow careers and the company to prosper.

Chair and Professor, Startup CTO in Education, 5,001 - 10,000 employees

More education is needed. In addition, the maturity and increased security of the cloud will slowly convice everybody to go cloud.

Chief Technology Officer in Healthcare and Biotech, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

Like most things it comes down to communication.

What are the reasons for the resistance? Is it because the person is adverse to change? Do they think it will automate away their job? Do they feel the cloud is less secure?

My approach is to explain the benefits and also provide clarity and transparency around what it means for the individual and their role.

Perhaps it means all the painful and less desirable parts of their role go away and they are more able to focus on things they enjoy more or if frees them to work on new projects. Or perhaps it increases the company’s security posture and enables all kinds of things the person had wanted to achieve but were unable to reach.

Without more context it’s difficult to be more specific - for instance, is the resistance from a CFO, an IT team member, a rank-and-file office worker?

However either way it comes down to communication and empathy and taking people on a journey.

CTO in Education, 51 - 200 employees

The same way you deal with the adoption of any technology or process - by building a business case to address not just the cost/benefit analysis, but also addressing objections, perceived risks, etc.

The cloud is not the "right" decision in all scenarios, nor is it always the "only right" scenario. In some cases, "the cloud" may be the right choice, but you still have to execute appropriately. All of this must be addressed in your business case.

Manager in Manufacturing, 10,001+ employees

It needs to be an analysis of the pros and cons with a special emphasis on security and the advantages related with cloud computing and storage.

CTO in Healthcare and Biotech, 2 - 10 employees

You have to have empathy. Put yourself in their shoes and understand what they care about. How does the cloud interface with their preconception/misconceptions and how could it most impact their job. Honestly the cloud is great and offers benefits to most stakeholders, you just need to understand their need and worries.

1 Reply

CTO in Healthcare and Biotech, 2 - 10 employees

Not sure why it says anonymous user, this is Ian Hill.

CTO in Education, 10,001+ employees

It depends on where the resistance is coming from. If it's within the IT staff, many things can help. Ensuring the staff is training to fully understand the environment and benefits always helps. Finding those early adopters or believers in a sense and making them advocates always works. If the resistance is from other business units, somethings some education around the technology helps as well as overall ROI is always helpful to get staff to understand from a business-only lense. Explain some of the sustainability that is built in and cost offset of localized data centers or app hosting. Mostly from the technical side its the fear of losing value in one's job or losing their job all together. This can bleed over to negative thoughts in all areas.

VP of Engineering in Education, 10,001+ employees

The best way that I have found success is to understand the counter point of view and come up with specific plan and data points to address the resistance area. If the resistance is around cost, create a 3/5 year cost / ROI. If the resistance is around security, identify specific measures of security in current on-prem and compare to cloud. If the resistance is around growth / time to market, take a current project example and model how it could be differently rolled out on cloud. If the resistance is around vendor lock-in, identify what the off-boarding and move to another vendor strategy could look like. Point being, go from hypotheticals to models and data.