Syed Shabih Abbas, Senior Director at DXC Technology, argues that the fundamental drivers for cloud migration have evolved:“ If you would have asked me a question like this 10 years back, I would have said cost. That’ s not the case anymore,” he said in a panel at Tech & AI LIVE in London.“ So why would you want to move to cloud is if you are thinking transformation- if you are trying to transform your enterprise, really use the scalability and the next-gen technologies.”
However, Syed also warns against rushed migrations:“ Where you don’ t want to move to cloud: if you’ re trying to move as-is your estate. You are in a rush. You are in a phase where you are competing with your other enterprises, where you say,‘ Oh, those guys are 90 % on cloud. Why am I not?’ You don’ t want to get on to the cloud in that way.”
Planning for success – and failure The complexity of migration planning cannot be overstated. Syed emphasises the importance of proper preparation:“ The way I see it is it’ s a 70-30 rule. I call it P ² and E and then O ². P ² is prepare and plan, and that’ s where you really spend 70 % of your time. Execution – once it is done, it’ s okay. You’ ve got a lot of tools. And then the last O ² is how do we operationalise it and how do we optimise it?”
92 September 2025