As companies are accelerating the rollout of data-powered business models while countries and regions tighten regulations around data usage and deployment, Google Cloud has introduced a simple but powerful online tool to help businesses optimize their data-sovereignty initiatives.
While reading about this innovation from Google Cloud, a fundamental question kept surfacing: why aren’t the incredibly capable companies in the Cloud Wars Top 10 developing more — lots more —self-service explore-and-evaluate tools like this?
I’ll come back to that in a moment, but first, let me share a few details about Google Cloud’s new Digital Sovereignty Explorer. Here’s an excerpt from a Google Cloud blog post introducing the interactive solution.
Designing a digital sovereignty strategy that balances control and innovation is challenging because:
- Foundational concepts are not always well-understood, including regulatory requirements, legal safeguards, and risk management.
- Many organizations struggle to articulate specific requirements, particularly when it comes to how sovereign strategies enable digital transformation.
- Choosing the best potential technologies and solutions for your organization’s needs can be difficult.
- A shortage of advisory capacity and expertise in the market can make these challenges even harder to overcome.
While those are all key insights, there are larger forces at play here that add an extreme degree of urgency and strategic significance to this outline: first, every large and mid-sized business in the world is racing to develop data-powered business models, products, services, partnerships, and cultures. Second, at the very same time, many countries as well as some broader regions are rolling out detailed and often complex regulatory policies around data privacy, data residency, data usage, data movement, and more.
So as you look at those four points outlined by Google Cloud, you need to be sure you’re not viewing those as guidelines for a “study group” or “exploratory panel” that will chit and chat and dither for six months before releasing a 300-slide “feasibility proposal” calling for a 2-year project.
And that, my friends, is the road to ruin. Today’s business environment calls for speed, decisiveness, and a willingness to jump in early while having the flexibility and nimbleness to adapt and optimize along the way.
In some ways, that’s exactly what Google Cloud’s Sovereignty Explorer is all about. From the blog post:
Explorer is an online, interactive tool that takes individuals through a guided series of questions about their organizations’ digital sovereignty requirements. It seeks to simplify terms and explain important concepts.
At each step along the way, the Explorer aims to help you to clarify key considerations and tradeoffs in your digital sovereignty options, to understand available solution options, and to make more informed choices about potential solutions for your particular cloud workloads.
Final Thought
As I mentioned above, this interactive tool from Google Cloud seems like an ideal example for a range of personalized and intelligent engagement services aimed at businesses looking to move into or optimize their current environments.
So why doesn’t some Cloud Wars Top 10 company jump in with:
- Cybersecurity Digital Explorer?
- Business Acceleration Digital Explorer?
- Supply-Chain Optimizer Digital Explorer?
- Bulldoze-the-Silos Digital Explorer?
- Cloud-Optimizer Digital Explorer? And even
- Which Database Is Right For You Digital Explorer?
I think lots of customers would perceive a great deal of value in such offerings.
To hear more data modernization, AI/hyperautomation, cybersecurity, and growth strategies from CIO practitioners, tune into Acceleration Economy’s Digital CIO Summit, which takes place April 4-6. Register for the free event here.
