#6. Assume everyone has access to the foundational tech [The playbook for HOW! A journey to sustainable performance in the digital age]

Cloud services; IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), will continue to revolutionise the way we design, build and maintain digital software and platforms. They have changed the paradigm by democratising enterprise grade services to the extent that you should now assume that everyone has access to sophisticated foundational tech on a pay-as-you-go/ use basis.

Great for those who were previously unable to access or afford this; small, medium and large corporates below enterprise size, organisations in less developed regions or nations, entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Not so great for enterprises who were previously able to rely on enterprise grade services to support their competitive advantage and act as a protective barrier to entry; by being of that rare size to be able to afford to pay the ongoing licensing and hardware costs, as well as resourcing the typically large teams required to implement and maintain the systems (often leading on to "we do all build in-house and that's the only way" syndrome). This advantage is now greatly diminished.

If you are an enterprise realise and embrace this change, and better leverage the benefits of cloud services. Re-balance your IT resources to focus even more on the generation of higher-order customer experiences and business value, whilst you "outsource" your lower-order foundational tech to the cloud.