Many IT organizations have discussed moving to the cloud, but few have developed a robust strategy and clear roadmap. Due to its flexibility and intuitive applications, a traditional plan with defined milestones may not be necessary.
The main challenge lies in outdated IT strategies, a lack of alignment across the business, unclear goals for cloud adoption, a weak business case, undefined success metrics, and insufficient buy-in from leadership.
To overcome these obstacles, it’s crucial to first understand the context and priorities of the business and its IT roadmap. This requires a thorough analysis of the business objectives, challenges, operations, IT and application landscape, and finances.
How To Ensure Cloud Adoption Success:
Start with a summary of your desired outcomes from using the cloud, this will help you create a plan for adopting the cloud. This plan should then include an evaluation of workloads and address the important questions of: How to reach the goal, the timeline, the impact on the current organization, and how success will be measured.
5 Things to Avoid When Creating Your Cloud Migration Strategy
- Following Trends Blindly: In business, a one-size-fits-all approach is not effective. Adopting technology just to keep up with trends is not a wise decision and can lead to operational difficulties and excessive budget expenditures. Before adopting cloud solutions, it’s important to sit down with your IT team and assess your business needs. If a cloud migration is necessary, develop a plan and stick to it. Define specific goals for the cloud such as improved sales, enhanced customer experience, and reduced time to market, as these will help make the cloud adoption process smoother as you’ll always be working towards your end-goal.
- Over-reliance on Internal Teams: This is a common cause of cloud adoption failure. Many business owners assume that cloud implementation is like app development and that their IT and development teams can handle it. However, every business is unique and has different interdependencies. Assess whether your internal team has the expertise to manage cloud operations. Moving to the cloud requires learning and mastery of cloud implementation skills. If you have doubts about your team’s expertise, don’t assume they will figure it out. Consider partnering with a digital transformation solutions provider, like Stefanini.
- Not Exploring All Available Options: Choosing the wrong cloud platform is one of the biggest reasons for cloud adoption failure. People tend to do minimal research, often just Googling “best cloud platform for 2022,” before deciding. This approach is not sufficient. Every cloud platform has its advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important to explore all of the options. It’s also challenging to switch between cloud vendors once you’ve made a choice, particularly if you’re operating on a multi-cloud architecture. To ensure a successful cloud strategy, choose a managed cloud services provider with experience.
- Poor Communication: Communication is crucial in cloud adoption, regardless of the size of the migration. Miscommunication can cause cloud adoption failure. Businesses often struggle to communicate their goals with IT teams, leading to failure. Executives should establish a clear line of communication so that key decisions and goals are communicated to IT. This will also help bring both IT and executives together to achieve the desired business goals.
How Can Stefanini Support Your Cloud Migration?
We speed up a company’s transition to the cloud through a comprehensive approach that updates your skills, processes, and culture to be optimized for the cloud. Our goal is to align your cloud strategy with your business objectives to fully leverage the benefits of the cloud. This is backed by a business case that considers not only financial benefits but also other advantages, such as sustainability.
Our team has extensive experience in crafting and executing cloud strategies that help organizations maximize the benefits of their cloud adoption. Our approach is consultative, focused on business goals and co-creation, and results oriented. We understand that every customer is unique, and our solutions are tailored to meet their specific needs.
For more information about how we can support your cloud strategy and migration, get in touch today.
