Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER SEPTEMBER 2018 26 FEATURES QUICKLY FIND WHAT YOU NEED IN YOUR LEGAL COMMUNITY ALBERTA LEGAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY 2018-19 Includes Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon The Alberta Legal Telephone Directory 2018-19 helps you find lawyers, courts, government departments and any other legal entities you need. Published annually, it includes new and updated names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and fax numbers for up to 10,000 listings. Order your copy today! Visit www.store.thomsonreuters.ca or call 1.800.387.5164 for a 30-day no risk evaluation. Spiralbound • September 2018 • $49.50* Order No. L7798-8403 • ISBN 978-0-7798-8403-2 Multiple copy discounts available *Plus applicable taxes and shipping & handling. Prices subject to change without notice. OUTSOURCING Locking into the cloud Driving synergies across multiple providers, while enabling innovation and managing risk By David Brassor A s service providers trans- form how they deliver services to organizations, the cloud has become an inevita- ble part of the delivery. However, many employers still prefer on- premise-based solutions versus cloud-based solutions. In most cases, this is a result of: challenges around contracting for cloud services, the perception of cloud's security, and the readiness of the organization to adopt and manage cloud services. But the majority of software as a service (SaaS) providers are actively moving applications to cloud-based platforms, so it's not a matter of if it will happen, but when. This is forcing employers to adopt cloud-based solutions irrel- evant of the organization's readi- ness to adopt and govern them. While the major legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) provid- ers have legacy on-premise code base they support, their strategic direction is to move clients to the cloud in order to reduce costs and bring new capabilities to market more quickly. Legal and procurement issues As organizations begin their jour- ney to the cloud, one of the early areas they will need to address is the contracting of cloud services. Many organizations' legal and procurement teams are unfamil- iar with the nuances of contract- ing when it comes to the cloud and will need to hone their skills in this area. One of the key concepts of cloud contracting is the limited ability to change the contracts for cloud services. e majority of cloud providers present very few options to amend cloud con- tracts, with a "take it or leave it" approach. Legal and procurement need to have a strong understanding of how to contract in the cloud and, more importantly, how they become a partner with the business in order to understand and mitigate cloud contracting elements such as penalty frame- works and indemnity, which are limited in the context of cloud- based solutions. Security concerns e next major area of focus is securing the platform and data within the cloud. ere continues to be a misno- mer that cloud solutions are not yet secure. In reality, cloud pro- viders continue to invest millions of dollars annually to stay on top of security advances and capabili- ties. Major cloud platform provid- ers off er employers the tools and technologies needed to eff ectively secure their environments. It is said that people can have the most expensive home security system in the world, but if they leave the front door open, crimi- nals will come in. On that note, the majority of employer breaches announced in the press have been because of a failure to adhere to best practices for cloud security, thus exposing organizations' data or assets. Building a strong cloud-securi- ty competency at an organization, or outsourcing this capability to a specialized third-party provider, can help to mitigate this risk. However, even if the cloud- based solution is fully outsourced, employers will still need to ad- dress the skills and organizational changes needed to adopt, manage and govern the cloud. Key focus areas for many orga- nizations should include: Procurement and legal: Cloud procurement and contracting is fundamentally diff erent and re- quires organizations to train and educate their legal teams on these processes. In some cases, organi- zations have developed specifi c business units to solely manage cloud legal and procurement. Governance: Developing a cloud governance model to man- age and control the adoption and ongoing use of cloud services is key to success. Unfortunately, many organizations have by- passed this activity and it has led to challenges such as spend issues within the cloud or shadow IT (such as business leveraging the cloud without the correct over- sight from IT). e key is to make the governance processes fl exible enough to encourage innovation, while having the right gate checks and controls to manage risk to the business. Security: is is about enhanc- ing existing security capabilities to include skills and processes around securing cloud-based workloads, and managing pro- viders that are delivering cloud security services. is is a highly specialized area of the cloud journey and many employers are now leveraging outsourced cy- bersecurity fi rms to deliver such capabilities. Vendor management: As re- sources move from legacy sup- port roles into newer cloud-based roles, the ability to proactively manage the ecosystem of cloud- based vendors will be important. Building this skill set doesn't hap- pen overnight but it is critical to the successful adoption of cloud- based services moving forward. Moving business and out- sourced processes to the cloud is inevitable. Readying an organiza- tion to leverage cloud-based out- sourced services requires them to rethink how they procure and consume cloud-based services. It's estimated 86 per cent of or- ganizations globally will embrace a multi-vendor cloud ecosystem across SaaS, PaaS (platform as a service) and IaaS (infrastructure as a service), according to a 2018 survey by Virtustream and For- rester Consulting. So, the question at hand is: How does an employer drive synergies across multiple cloud providers, enable innovation, and simulta- neously manage risk? Don't be afraid — embrace the transition to the cloud. Organiza- tions are driving signifi cant ben- efits from the consumption of cloud services and it's only a mat- ter of time before most employers are "in the cloud." David Brassor is a director and na- tional cloud and infrastructure lead- er at Deloitte Canada in Toronto. He can be reached at dbrassor@deloitte. ca or for more information, visit www. deloitte.ca. Credit: Maksim Kabakou (Shutterstock) The key is to make the governance processes fl exible enough to encourage innovation, while having the right gate checks and controls. Compensation Surveys Incentive Programs Job Descriptions Job Evaluation Pay Equity Performance Appraisal Salary Administration Sales Compensation (416) 498-7800 ext. 101 info@resourcecorporation.com www.resourcecorporation.com COMPENSATION CONSULTING Top 5 reasons why companies outsource • to cut costs (59 per cent) • to focus on core business (57 per cent) • to solve capacity issues (47 per cent) • to enhance service quality (31 per cent) • it's critical to business needs (28 per cent). Source: Deloitte's 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey

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