Dr Maiendra Moodley, senior analyst at geostrategic analysis and business consultancy Wikistrat, is scheduled to present at the ITWeb Cloud Summit 2026 on 29 September at The Canvas, Riversands, where he will discuss the growing disconnect between cloud adoption and a company's ability to manage its consequences.
Speaking to ITWeb ahead of the event, Moodley said cloud has fundamentally transformed how companies consume technology, accelerate AI adoption and drive digital innovation.
“Yet while cloud technologies have evolved rapidly, many organisations continue to govern them using leadership models, operating structures and accountability frameworks built for a different era,” Moodley explained.
The fundamental problem, he added, is that cloud adoption has moved faster than organisational redesign.
According to the Wikistrat analyst, many companies have modernised their technology environments while retaining leadership models, decision rights, budgeting processes and accountability structures that are not fit for purpose.
“These functions in business were designed for a time when technology infrastructure was relatively static, centrally controlled and acquired through predictable investment cycles,” said Moodley.
“Cloud changed those assumptions,” he added. “Infrastructure became dynamic, consumption continuous and technology decisions far more distributed. Business units can now acquire and scale capabilities extraordinarily quickly. Yet accountability is often still fragmented across technology, finance, risk, procurement, security and the business.”
This creates a structural mismatch, said Moodley. “We are trying to operate modern technology through management and governance systems designed for a different technological age.”
This mismatch sits at the heart of the cloud consequence gap.
AI in the mix
AI has the potential to widen the gap considerably, said Moodley.
He explained that AI and cloud are increasingly interdependent. Cloud provides much of the scalable compute, data infrastructure and platform capability that makes enterprise AI possible. As AI adoption accelerates, it drives greater cloud consumption, demand for specialised infrastructure, new data dependencies and increasingly complex questions around cost, sovereignty, security, accountability and vendor concentration.
But there is a deeper issue, he warned.
“AI accelerates the speed at which organisations can deploy, consume and act on technology. Organisational decision-making, governance and accountability do not necessarily accelerate with it," he said. "We therefore risk creating organisations where technological capability advances exponentially while accountability evolves incrementally. For me, that is one of the important governance questions emerging from the convergence of AI and cloud: can the organisation itself keep pace with the technology it is adopting?”
Advice for business leaders
Asked what advice he would give business leaders who want to ensure a balance between maturity, resource allocation, management and governance, Moodley said the starting point is to stop treating cloud purely as an IT asset and start treating it as an enterprise capability.
“Leadership needs clarity about outcomes and accountability," he said. "Who owns the value? Who owns consumption? Who owns the risk? Who makes architectural decisions? And, importantly, who is accountable when the consequences cross the traditional boundaries between technology, finance, security, risk and the business?"
He also encouraged leaders to examine where they are investing. "Organisations can spend enormous amounts on platforms and infrastructure while underinvesting in the capabilities needed to use them well: people, skills, architecture, financial management, governance and organisational change.”
According to Moodley, the objective is not to create more governance for its own sake, but to create enough organisational maturity to use cloud confidently, responsibly and at speed.
“Good governance should enable that," he said. "It should not become an unintended hindrance. Ultimately, the next phase of cloud maturity will be judged very differently from the last.”
Summit overview
Ntando Sibanda, senior conference producer at ITWeb events, said cloud has become the anchor for resilient innovation at scale.
“Cloud adoption and application is front of mind for business leaders who know the strategic value of governed AI in the workplace," said Sibanda. "This summit is not simply another event – it is an effective forum for businesses to gain insight and collaborate to build resilience.”
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