For established firms, the controversy is settled: a hybrid cloud approach is the correct strategic alternative.

While adopting a hybrid cloud could also be inherently mandatory, customers are all the time seeking to get business value and greater return on investment (ROI) from their investments. According to a study conducted by HFS Research in collaboration with IBM Consulting®, only 25% of firms surveyed reported solid ROI on the business outcomes of their cloud transformation efforts.

The lack of ROI progress will be attributed to several aspects, including slow adoption, unrealized use cases, and unaddressed cloud proliferation. This is exacerbated by the increasing challenges of platform scaling, skills, cybersecurity and the explosion in data volumes.

Companies that need to add value to their business outcomes through their cloud investments and harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) must take a deliberate approach.

At IBM, we offer clear guidance to handle these challenges and achieve higher business results. Adopting a hybrid-by-design strategy allows firms to align architectural decisions with business priorities across technology, platforms, processes and folks, leading to significantly improved results and increased ROI.

IBM’s latest paper, “Maximize the worth of hybrid cloud within the age of generative AI,” provides clarity for organizations seeking to optimize their hybrid cloud architecture and increase the impact of generative AI (Gen AI).

What does a hybrid by design approach entail?

Many firms have adopted the cloud in isolated areas to realize immediate advantages, but aren’t consistently applying the technology across their operations. This complexity and inconsistency increase costs and forestall organizations from meeting requirements, goals and outcomes. We consider this to be an ordinary approach that characterizes most firms today.

Organizations must recalibrate transformation programs to higher align with business needs and outcomes. They also need to acknowledge how Gen AI can increase the worth of hybrid cloud and speed up digital transformation.

A hybrid by design approach intentionally structures your hybrid multicloud IT estate to realize key business priorities and maximize ROI. Organizations can move from technology dictating business constraints to purposefully built architectures which might be ready for evolving technology landscapes, recent business and customer requirements, and recent processes and skills requirements. Based on a corporation’s key business objectives, intentional and consistent architectural decisions enable organizations to totally leverage hybrid cloud and Gen AI to drive their business results.

IBM has developed a codified framework to assist customers strategically concentrate on decisions that drive essentially the most results for his or her business, promoting a “hybrid by design” approach. This framework makes it easier to translate business priorities into key architectural decisions.

We implement this framework by aligning business goals with a set of decision points in three areas: Product Native by Design, Technology by Design, and Integration by Design. These domains also include different design points. Each business situation requires different levels of skills to handle and achieve their business goals. This value framework helps capture these decision points.

Why does this matter to businesses in an AI-centric world?

Gen AI plays a critical role in shaping the digital enterprise and helps maximize business returns from IT investments. However, widespread adoption and deployment of Gen AI presents challenges. Organizations must manage massive amounts of knowledge, significant computing power, advanced security architecture in distributed environments, and ensure rapid scalability.

Deliberate and consistent hybrid architecture design helps organizations overcome these challenges and facilitates the successful adoption and scalability of Gen AI capabilities to fulfill business needs.

Current pilots and implementations prove that a hybrid-by-design approach is required to scale the deployment of Gen AI to fulfill business needs. Gen AI accelerates hybrid cloud execution and value by providing improved automation with observability, improved cost optimization with automated insights, and increased security with compliance across the hybrid platform.

Applying conscious architectural decisions based on business needs increases the worth of hybrid cloud and AI and drives business outcomes.

Would you want to seek out out more? Connect with IBM’s Hybrid Cloud and AI team.

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This article was originally published at www.ibm.com