Information Services Group (ISG), a technology insights, market intelligence, and advisory services company, has formed a dedicated Cloud Solutions practice to help clients devise a cloud transformation strategy and guide them as they move work to the cloud.
ISG has been advising clients about cloud solutions since 2010, but with the adoption of cloud services on the rise, the firm decided to create a formal practice area and expand its advisory capabilities with new evaluation tools and management platforms.
"ISG's cloud transformation offerings will help clients understand their current cloud spending, determine which applications are cloud-ready, compare cloud delivery models, including pricing across various public, private and hybrid clouds, and facilitate the rapid development of an overall cloud transformation roadmap," said Todd Lavieri, president of ISG Americas, in a statement.
Lavieri noted that ISG Cloud Solutions will be available immediately to clients on a worldwide basis, calling the new practice "a significant step in ISG's overall strategy to help clients master the complexities of emerging technologies, and harness their power for continued growth and operational excellence."
As part of its capability set, ISG Cloud Solutions will offer an application-centric cloud readiness service to create a realistic cloud migration roadmap. The new cloud practice will be able to help companies develop strategies involving infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS), and business process-as-a-service (BPaaS).
"The biggest challenge with developing a broad cloud strategy is the sheer number of options and suppliers available," said Steve Hall, ISG's global Assess & Design and Emerging Technologies leader, in a statement. "Not only do buyers need to make decisions regarding SaaS or IaaS, but they also have to make decisions about whether to use a public or private cloud, and which deployment models and options they should consider. ISG's cloud transformation services cut through the noise with our Cloud Service Evaluator, a comprehensive framework of evaluation metrics, scoring system, and decision-support methodology to help clients arrive at the best cloud solutions to meet their business needs."
An increasing number of enterprises and governments are taking a cloud-first approach, and according to multiple industry studies, enterprises are expected to move more than 40 percent of their applications to a cloud delivery model by 2020.
ISG Research estimates more than $100 billion of annual outsourcing contract value will be renegotiated in the next 24 months. Approximately half of these restructurings are infrastructure-related, and many of these buyers have expressed strong interest in adding cloud to their existing IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing mix.