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Writer's pictureStephen Dorward

Cloud Due Diligence


'To a Head of Business, head of programme delivery, head of cyber/security, CTO'

So you've decided to look at a new HR or Finance solution? Something "on the Cloud" because you have heard that's the place to be? What's your biggest concern? The ability to convince your board to approve the business case? The extended RFP process to look at suitable vendors? The cost and time involved?


You've got a lot to consider and work on, not forgetting the due diligence you'll want to consider these https://thesocialmediamonthly.com/treacherous-twelve-the-top-12-cloud-security-threats/


Cloud Security Alliance (The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading organisation dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment).


Buried within these considerations is your due diligence, seen as one of the top areas of neglect, you only get once chance to perform the first due diligence.


This is the phase of the procurement exercise often left right to the end when you've already made your mind up about the functional and operational fit for your new HR or Finance solution and you've no time, resource or budget left. A poorly performed or rushed due diligence can eradicate any potential savings or benefits which your cloud solution was looking to provide or it can expose your organisation and personal data.


Not all Cloud vendors are equal and even mature vendors such as Workday whilst well respected and has huge clients including Military, Government and Financial Services you will still need to prove to your CTO, Chief Security or Cyber officer, Procurement and Risk officer that you have performed the necessary due diligence.


"The Cloud Architect" (https://stevedorward.wixsite.com/thecloudarchitect) a 20 year veteran of technology procurement and 4 year veteran of Cloud procurment to produce specific due diligence process that uses industry leading artefacts to ensure that your potential Cloud Saas solution complies with all the relevant areas which an organisation needs to consider, together with a final report format which aligns with your business case and technology teams for easy consumption and review.


The template process has been used by small and large organisations alike to perform the technology due diligence activity in days as opposed to weeks.

Without this you could spend weeks with expensive resources from various technology groups within your organisation performing an exercise which has already been done. T


The average saving to clients has been around £10k.


The Cloud Architect have worked with with Cloud Security Alliance and matured its processes and reporting to take the strain, cost and complexity out of the due diligence phase.

Workday are unique amongst the Cloud SaaS vendors in that they have anticipated their clients questions within their Trust Programme and have already answered the questions for you.


TECHNOLOGY Due Diligence Unlike traditional on premise IT the questions within a Cloud due diligence are very different. Many organisations have yet to embed Cloud within their procurement and due diligence phases and the documentation to assess vendors may not be updated to include for Cloud and specifically for Software as a Service.


Our process will.consider all the key areas (see attached) aligned to service management principles such as ITIL.


The Cloud Architect used and developed this template due diligence process for Workday HR, for the UKs largest retail bank in 2017. It's since been used successfully for a number of clients.

If you'd like further information on the due diligence process and how Focus Cloud and The Cloud Architect can help then please contact us at TheCloudArchitectScotland@gmail.com

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