In my last blog, 5 Disciplines of Cloud Governance for Azure, I talked about using the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) for Governance and using the five disciplines. In this blog, I will share more detail of how to implement these disciplines. The disciplines are cost management, security baseline, resource consistency, identity baseline and deployment acceleration. Each one of these disciplines can be viewed as a category of governance and used in a way to provide focus on key areas.

It is important to note that although they are separate, they do intermingle. Though it is possible to implement some governance by selecting a subset of disciplines, it is recommended to use all five disciplines as part of a governance minimum viable product (MVP) strategy.

The fact that compliance efforts can be challenging is no surprise to IT professionals and managers. Today’s regulatory environment is full of security and privacy regulations that place strict limits on the collection, handling and storage of sensitive information, and IT teams often find themselves responsible for the heavy lifting of compliance programs.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with a retailer that operates a large contact center to support its international chain of stores. The company was in the early stages of reviewing its compliance obligations and asked us to find ways to modify business practices to reduce the scope of its compliance efforts. After reviewing the company’s activities, we discovered a few small changes in the way the company handles information that could dramatically reduce its compliance burden. Organizations across industries can draw lessons from this experience as they seek to reduce their own costs of compliance.

ServiceNow recently announced four return-to-work applications focused on helping customers prepare and manage their employees for a safe return to the workplace. From employee readiness surveys to health screening to PPE inventory management and more, these apps and the complimentary management dashboard will help ensure that the workforce transition from home back to the office is seamless and safe.

In its bid to help organizations return to the workplace in a safe manner, ServiceNow is doing what it does best, helping companies manage the complex workflows that are integral part of keeping employees healthy. The ServiceNow Safe Workplace suite is engineered with that in mind.

Any manufacturer with a complex production line understands the importance of having a connected factory. By deploying machines that can communicate and share data with a central system, a manufacturer can adapt to operational needs in real time to drive efficiencies and improve the bottom line. But connected factories also face challenges that can hamper success if left unaddressed.

While regulatory compliance is nothing new to cybersecurity professionals, many organizations still have concerns about their compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the rollout of the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Many of the same security controls that organizations measure to demonstrate compliance with regulations such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and HIPAA, or even security due diligence, will serve those organizations well as they seek to establish programs that are GDPR and CCPA compliant.

Let’s take a look at some simple things that you can do to either shore up your existing privacy program or establish a new one.

When I first began working on technology integration projects for merger and acquisition (M&A) deals, success was difficult to come by. But I’ve found again and again that organizations can head off roadblocks by giving IT teams a seat at the table alongside executive leadership early in the process.

Help ensure the success of your M&A by reading up on the four topics IT and business leaders should discuss from the start.