Business Consultants: MIA in the Cloud

With the rise of cloud computing it will become more practical to execute any number of business processes. The problem is that most businesses today are not exactly sure what those business processes might be.

That’s what makes the expanding alliance between Accenture and BMC Software worth noting. The two companies have announced that they will work together on optimizing IT service management (ITSM) across virtual and cloud computing environments.

While that effort is focused primarily on tactical IT issues, it also signals Accenture’s intention to bring its business consulting skills to the cloud. With exception of IBM, business consulting firms have been a tad slow off the cloud computing mark. The opportunity that cloud computing affords companies to create new business processes while at the same time making existing ones more efficient is nothing short of profound.

For cloud computing to really reach its full potential what’s needed is some creative business thinking. Otherwise, all we’re going to wind up with is another tier of computing that ultimately may prove to be marginally interesting.

As David Greene, vice president of solutions marketing for BMC Software notes, IT staffs should welcome the presence of companies such as Accenture in the cloud computing space because the more business consulting specialists there are in the cloud, the more interesting things will ultimately become. Right now, says Greene, too much of the cloud computing conversation coming out of IBM is concentrated on one vertical stack of technologies.

Of course, that also means there will soon be a full-scale war in the cloud between various business consulting factions as well. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing either because from all contention will surely foster the next great business idea.