Top-Level Conviction

The most important thing about moving fast is all about having the top level of conviction -- having the senior leaders of these partners having that conviction that, “Hey, we have to become cloud first.” And if the senior leaders make that into their priority, then the entire organization will follow, and everything that they do will be about moving faster to the cloud.

Companies like Accenture and Slalom and Rackspace…the senior leaders of these companies, they were courageous. They showed a lot of discipline in making the right tradeoffs for their business, and they made a decision to go and become a cloud-first company.

When you make that decision, sometimes you have to deal with some of the challenges that come with that decision, like potentially cannibalizing their existing business that’s on prem. But they know that for them to shape the future of their businesses, they had to make that decision, because they knew the cloud was the future.

More and more CEOs are telling me that they’re now willing to make that decision. Because of everything that’s happened over the last nine to 12 months, I think the CEOs of these partners are saying, “Okay, there is no waiting until tomorrow. We’ve got to do this now.” I think we’re going to see a lot more CEOs and senior leaders of these companies making that hard decision, but it’s the right decision.