Cloud Optimization Specialist: What Do They Do & How Do They Help?

Implementing new technology solutions and systems is supposed to make things easier for your customers and employees, save time and cut down on overhead spend.

But without the right visibility, understanding and optimization of your implementation, processes become harder and more confusing while time and money are wasted. 

Integrating a successful cloud strategy is essential for survival. But oftentimes, strategies become the most successful when they’re constantly monitored and reworked – which, in today’s competitive and ever-shifting market, can be even more difficult to manage. 

That’s where cloud optimization specialists and consultants come in.

Everything you need to know about cloud optimization specialists:

• What is Cloud Optimization?
• What does a Cloud Optimization specialist do?
• When should you hire a Cloud Optimization specialist?
• How does a Cloud Optimization specialist help your business?
• Types of projects Cloud Optimization specialists work on, plus examples

What is Cloud Optimization?

Cloud optimization is the process of analyzing your current cloud configuration to identify gaps, risks and areas for improvement and developing a roadmap for integrating all necessary changes in a sustainable and effective manner.

Cloud Optimization activities:

• Assessment: Assessing your business, process and team to identify optimization opportunities
• Installation Rework: Working across teams to rework and refine applications, software and processes
• Oversight: Consistently monitoring and managing the implementation
• Expansion & Scaling: Integrating additional supporting technologies as needed

What does a Cloud Optimization specialist do?

A cloud optimization specialist is there to guide you throughout every phase of the rework of your implementation, bringing a structured approach to identifying optimization opportunities and defining a roadmap to realize the improvements.

Skills of Cloud Optimization specialists include:

• Working across departments to ensure seamless implementation
• Acting as a teacher of new processes and technology to ensure alignment and understanding
• Customizing systems, applications and other solutions to fit client’s unique needs
• Conducting testings of integrations
• Developing a roadmap of your proposed optimization strategy 
• Managing, optimizing and scaling your deployment with ongoing, hands-on support and recommendations for additional supporting technologies  
• Conducting IV&V (independent validation and verification)
• Designing infrastructures and conducting data migration

When should you hire a Cloud Optimization specialist?

If you’re already up and running on a system like Oracle or NetSuite but recognize a need to improve your current configuration or integrate a more updated version of the system, hiring a cloud optimization specialist is essential. Without a cloud optimization specialist, it becomes all too easy to waste time and money on solutions that aren’t suited for your specific needs.

How does a Cloud Optimization specialist help your business?

• Cutting down on costs with optimization tools and technologies that are designed to fit your individual business needs 
• Streamlining processes and integrating performance-measuring features to boost team’s productivity
• Providing better oversight to and acquisition of company data, analytics reports and customer insights  
• Utilizing modern and proven methodologies to create end-to-end business transformations
• Providing access to change management experts, hands-on training and post-optimization support to further save time and reduce costs while allowing you to make the most of your cloud journey 

Types of projects Cloud Optimization specialists work on, plus examples:

Cloud optimization specialists work on a multitude of different projects, including everything from analyzing your business processes at a molecular level to teaching your team about how to use a new application.

Let’s take a look into one of the Bridgepoint Consulting team’s previous experiences as an example of the type of projects cloud optimization specialists are often tasked with. For a more detailed look, please head to our cloud optimization case study.

A client once came to us for guidance after a merger in which they were tasked with restructuring in a short period of time, and as a result, experienced the following issues:

• Discrepancies and breakdowns in processes that were negatively impacting cash flow
• A lack of visibility into expense drivers
• Questionable accuracy in historical financial accounting
• An inability to create timely financial reports and complete timely financial close (sometimes taking five weeks)
• Concerns over sales, inventory procurement, and shipment, ultimately leading to irregularities in billing, collection and financial reporting

Our cloud optimization specialist worked to understand the business growth challenges, first by collecting all financial documentation and interviewing key stakeholders across various departments before finally outlining a strategic process that would be confirmed by the client.

Next, our cloud optimization specialist optimized areas of the Client’s NetSuite instance to help set a foundation, automate functions and get necessary reporting that would ultimately work to utilize the platform better. Afterwards, they helped reconcile all material accounts and set up processes and recommendations that condensed the close cycle from 4 to 6 weeks to 1 week for the current year.

The team then assisted in going back to the prior year to fix the accounting records and recreate the support for prior yearend account balances, in addition to completing the ASC 606 analysis to help ensure the clean audit opinion required by the lenders.

Now, the client has a foundation that will allow them to see substantial improvements in financial reporting accuracy, increased efficiencies in reporting (about a week), and reduction in sales tax reporting errors — all due to proper optimizations of NetSuite.

As you can see, cloud optimization specialists work on many different types of projects — but the bottom line is that they’re instrumental in making the optimization process go as smoothly as possible while setting your business up for future success.