Objectives for adopting a multicloud strategy

The adoption of a multicloud strategy is typically based on the following business drivers:

• Mergers and acquisitions – When an organization acquires, or merges with, companies that are using services or deploying workloads on different CSPs, it must optimize and harmonize the new IT landscape. This is time-consuming, because it involves diverse business priorities and requires integration effort. Adopting a multicloud strategy is key to successfully managing the complexity of varying systems and ensuring that standardized controls are in place.

• Differentiated capabilities – Some companies choose multiple CSPs to leverage the best capabilities and services for a given use case. Each cloud provider offers unique services that address specific requirements. 

• Line of business independence – Centralized IT governance is often viewed as crucial for effective cloud deployment. However, allowing individual business units to choose their own cloud environments and provide their own governance can lead to optimized business outcomes, because different units might have requirements that are better served by specific cloud providers.

• Contractual requirements – An FI might have contractual requirements from their customers that mandate the use of a specific CSP.

• Generating business value – The key reason why an FI should look to operate in multiple CSPs is when it adds value for the business. An example would be where a key service that enables value to your business is available on only one CSP. 

For more information about business drivers, see Tenet 1 in Proven practices for developing a multicloud strategy.