CIO opinion
CIO OPINION
“
LOWERING THE
BARRIER TO
CONSUME THESE
NEW SERVICES
WILL ENABLE
OUR CUSTOMERS
TO ACCELERATE
THEIR VALUE TO
THE CLOUD AND
ENSURE THAT
THEY HAVE THE
RIGHT SUPPORT
WHEN EMBARKING
ON MORE
COMPLEX TASKS.
cloud players – we take a wholly unbiased
approach to cloud migration, so our
customers know that we are advising them
to take the cloud platform that will achieve
the best outcome for each project.
The company recently underwent
a strategy and brand shift towards
becoming a technology services
company. How does this new
strategy reflect changing
customer demands?
Our recent rebrand has really been a shift to
thematically underpin what we’ve known for a
long-time. It is the secret of our success: we put
the customer first. We wanted to bring to the
fore our philosophy that places both customers
and trust at the core of our business.
We want our customers to understand
and celebrate that no matter who they
engage with at Rackspace – whether that’s
a technical specialist, customer service
agent or the billing team – they will have
a fanatical experience centred around
enabling their success. It also reflects the
46
INTELLIGENTCIO
massively diversified services that our
customers are now demanding from us
as they look for guidance in areas that
Rackspace isn’t historically known for,
such as our Rackspace Application Services
(RAS) that have been built out through the
two recent acquisitions of Relation Edge
and TriCore.
Ultimately, IT environments are getting
harder and there is no way for CIOs and
IT Directors to be experts in every new
enterprise technology and understand how
it can be best applied to their business.
Our customers continually look to us – and
challenge us – to support them in closing
the gap between the complex reality that
is their IT environment today and what
can be achieved tomorrow through new
technologies and practices. Part of our
rebrand is celebrating the ability of the
Rackspace professional services team in
supporting our customers throughout their
Digital Transformation journey, whether
that’s cloud migration, introducing DevOps
practices or application management.
However, it’s not all change. As part of the
rebrand, we have retained and refocused
on what we know is most important for our
customers – accelerating the value of the
cloud. Cloud migration remains a ‘critical’
or ‘high priority’ business initiative for most
business leaders, but the challenges of
predicting costs, execution complexity and
delivering on the vision remains a challenge.
Where our strategy hasn’t shifted with the
rebrand is our dedication to ensuring that
we support our customers throughout their
cloud journey and help them continually
optimise their estates to ensure that they
continue to drive value. n
www.intelligentcio.com