The business landscape is changing. Most of the organisations now have remote workers, multiple offices, and to support these running multiple computing tools and platforms.
New changes bring greater opportunities but challenge too for the business leaders, especially IT departments struggling to keep pace along with security to drive effective collaboration and communication.
As the cloud has gained popularity and acceptance in the computing world by providing elasticity and solving business problems, more and more businesses are making the switch.
And it’s no surprise why?
- Productivity has increased by removing complexity as the process has become more user friendly
- Saves commutation time of employees they can access anything anywhere.
- Flexibility for employees which motivates them to work more effectively.
- Communication has become so easy that you can connect with anyone with just one click.
However due to pandemic, many businesses rush to adopt cloud in their environment, but it is not an easy initiative. Cloud migration comes with its challenges.
Challenge 1: Financial Cost
There is an initial investment to make the Cloud migration, its adoption, and then training involved after implementing the cloud migration. Though in the long run, it can show good results such as an increase in productivity, lower operational cost, smooth and user-friendly process.
But we need to consider some factors involved in the costing of the migration process such as:
- Designing application architecture for the cloud.
- Money involves in providing tools and resources.
- Training to users about the new system.
- Performance issues come when the dependencies are more on non-cloud applications. Latency and downtime are also important to keep in mind.
- Bandwidth costs to run all the applications smoothly.
If we consider these points, then cost-effective successful migration is possible.
Organisations can keep the migration cost low by following these stages:
Stage 1: Foundation
Executives are often resistant to new investment and are concerned about the output. So, initially, potential costs and benefits need assessing. Then a clear picture of how it will be invested followed with the centralised ownership of the cloud migration project before going to the next stage.
Stage 2: Planning
Planning is the foundation of success. Many factors need to be concerned while planning such as the approach to migration, time frame, when what and how many resources will be required. From the management side – a proper plan must be in place to consider every aspect of organisational change such as operations, service delivery, and governance. From a security perspective – Cybersecurity and compliance architecture should be planned.
Stage 3: Execution
Here the organisations implement the plan. Some factors which need proper attention here are which applications to migrate, replace, or remove. At this stage, delays happen either because of technical failure or inefficient process. So the whole project should be divided into multiple batches. Migrating operations in batches are practical and viable solutions that help in investing money as per the batch, it gives more flexibility and options to make any changes if required.
Stage 4: Monitoring
There are ongoing challenges to be addressed during this phase. It is important to keep monitoring these services and evaluate them for full optimisation.
These pointers will reduce any risk and uncertainty. This process will help in giving the output of the investment and helps in saving extra costs by addressing the issues in the early stage.
Challenge 2: Acceptance
It is a human tendency to resist change and cloud migration brings a lot of change and disruption with new systems and processes.
A change management plan should be prepared with a few pointers in mind:
- Communication – Every department head should be communicated clearly and all department heads should work together to make this project successful. If department heads are not convinced with the process or change then it is difficult to convince teammates. So, it is necessary to make sure that department heads understand the business need and objectives of the migration.
- Smooth workflow – if we make the system user-friendly then the user will adopt it easily. It will be more attractive to users when the new application can be integrated with existing applications. To make smooth workflow integration and usability is the key factor.
- Training – New process without proper knowledge looks confusing & complex to users, and users prefer to keep using familiar tools. So proper training and support to answer any query at any point of time is a necessary part
The user buys in and adoption is the second key factor in making a cloud migration project successful.
Challenge 3: Skill shortage
Despite multiple advantages and benefits of the cloud, the complexity involved in executing the migration project holds organisations to think twice. One of the major reasons is finding the right person who has the right skill set to implement and manage the cloud migration. Demand for cloud experts in more than the supply.
There are 2 options to tackle this challenge:
Option 1 – Cultivate cloud skills internally – Training would be required in the starting to understand the migration process and its complexity. Then strong commitment would be required for regular training to stay updated with the new release and updates as even a small mistake in configuration can lead to security holes. This will involve more cost but you will have an inhouse expert or team to implement and manage the migration process.
Option 2 – Hire an MSP – MSP can provide cloud adoption roadmaps and share additional resources so organisation is clear on expectations. One of the biggest benefits MSPs can offer is assistance with navigating and implementing fundamental changes while educating your users about the values of the cloud. That too at comparatively less cost than any organisation involved in building an in-house team. Teceze is one of the leading MSP.
How Teceze can help you?
Teceze not only provides cloud migration services but also cloud maintenance services. We also offer disaster recovery to decrease downtime and to ensure business continuity. We have the in-house experts with the right skill sets who understand the cloud environment and tools for working in that environment with their experience. Along with cloud migration and maintenance services we also offer Remote monitoring and management, service desk & patch management.
The business landscape is changing. Most of the organisations now have remote workers, multiple offices, and to support these running multiple computing tools and platforms.
