We recently had our roof redone. Should have had it done years ago. Instead we periodically had it patched with new shingles. Cosmetics instead of real work. The thought of days and weeks of workers and cost estimates that reflected the market after our various hurricanes were gating factors.
Then in the last year I noticed several neighbors get new roofs. Impressively the work was getting done in 1 or 2 days. Roofers were using conveyors to ship all the materials up and all the debris down. They were using vacuums, nail guns, magnetic sweepers and digital cameras. Lots of technology to expedite the work and make it nice and tidy – see my blog post here on the tech. And the cost estimates were far less than what we expected.
The bids we invited were even better. Impressive warranties - 30+ years against 130 mph winds. Better energy efficiency. Between the roofer and the inspector we have over 90 photos of the work which should now qualify us for annual home insurance discounts. The ROI keeps getting better.
And I thought I was so much like a CIO who keeps patching legacy on-premise systems. Why did I hesitate to call my friendly “cloud” roofer? I knew he offered warranties in the form of SLAs and annual cost caps, but still I hesitated.
It’s because I remembered the costs of the last roof, post hurricane. I remembered how disruptive and expensive it was.
Cloud vendors are doing themselves a disservice by going in with service partners who remind the CIO of the last “roofing job”. They need a newer ecosystem of partners who use automation for the migration, the integration, the testing – the roofers who use conveyors and digital cameras. They need roofers who are done in 2 days. Partners who treat it as a repeatable, predictable job not treat it as a work of art.
Then watch CIOs talk to their peer neighbors and start making the move one after another. And watch the neighborhood start to shine.
