March 2017

80 APAC / March 2017 , 1701AP43 Cloud Transforming Businesses Offis performs IT transformations, cloudmigrations, andmulti-cloudmanaged services, enabling their clients to leverage best-of-breed cloud technologies to disrupt or defend against would-be disruptors, delivering vital benefits, including innovation, agility, speed tomarket, cost optimisation, and automation. Offis is an Australian- owned leading IT and cloud services provider which has been servicing the APAC region for 20 years. We spoke to Franck Demoiseau to find out more about their ongoing strategy and their process in developing their company. “Research including our own CIO Cloud survey shows that the world is multi-cloud; the RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud survey shows companies leveraging 3 public clouds and 3 private clouds on average. Whilst most IT service providers have either aligned themselves with one public cloud or recommended their own private cloud, Offis has been busy servicing the important demand for experienced multi-cloud advisory, training and implementation services, supporting companies’ best interests and achieving desired outcomes - avoiding cloud vendor lock-in, achieving true agility, taming complexity, improving security, lowering TCO, etc. “When implemented properly, cloud is truly transformational, however, realising the ongoing benefits of cloud can be challenging, particularly in a multi-cloud context, requiring abstraction above underlying clouds, deep unbiased knowledge, and proven expertise, which is what differentiates Offis from other service providers. Offis works with the major public vendors and manages workloads in 10 different clouds worldwide, including our own ISO 27001 accredited data centre. Over the years, we have become leaders in abstraction technologies, integrated management, orchestration, security and governance across private/ public clouds and company data centres. “Our ethos is to provide our clients with market-leading independent thought leadership, innovation, best-of-breed technologies, futureproof designs, and proven delivery to help them thrive. Furthermore, we are unique in wanting our clients to retain complete control over what we design and build, avoiding cloud vendor lock- in by abstracting above any underlying cloud(s), using open technologies, futureproofing their investment, and offering the ongoing option to train their staff to manage this themselves or outsource to us.” The APAC region is a vast heterogeneous region with many sub-markets at varying cloud maturity levels, creating some challenges. Franck explains these challenges and how he thinks the industry has changed since the formation of the business. “The companies in each market are looking for genuine transformational innovation, enablement, agility, speed to market, cost optimisation, automation benefits that cloud brings, and they are increasingly moving towards using multiple clouds. So demand for Offis’ expertise and solutions will continue to increase. As a CEO, growth, while important, must also be managed carefully. “Cloud has moved on significantly, having evolved from a hosting destination that provided basic IaaS and OPEX vs CAPEX benefits at the expense of creating cloud vendor lock-in, to an abstraction layer above multiple cloud providers, underpinning a flourishing array of current and future transformational benefits: including innovation (accessing current/future technologies across clouds such as IoT, Big Data, and AI), agility, cost optimisation, automation and speed to market. “Unfortunately, there is a real skills and knowledge shortage, making it expensive, difficult and risky for companies to resource projects exclusively with internal personnel. This has created an opportunity for an IT service provider like Offis: with vast experience across the whole gamut of cloud and cloud abstraction solutions, playing a vital independent advisory role, with proven delivery capability and client focus.” Talking about his personal career, Franck discusses what keeps him motivated as well as outlining how his experience has helped him to become an award winning CEO. “I pride myself on being innovative, providing thought leadership, and knowing what is coming around the corner, which keeps me interested and motivated. In today’s world, with the pace of change at dizzying heights, I see this as an absolute necessity. It is essential to stay abreast of new technologies and emerging business models. CEOs and companies that rest on their laurels, even for a short while, run the risk of being disrupted by more innovative nimble competitors. “Having had significant directorship and C-level experience across Technology, Operations and Finance, in large and small companies across multiple industries and continents, I embrace change and can draw on wide and deep experience across disciplines, markets and organisational structures. I see myself as a strategic thinker and am intent on communicating my vision, both internally and externally. I see entrepreneurship and measured risk-taking as part and parcel of doing business in today’s world, and believe that avoiding risks at all costs is inherently very risky and thus self-defeating. Last but not least, being passionate about