Migration to the cloud not only offers organizations an opportunity to significantly upgrade their technology infrastructure, it also contributes to new business opportunities and enhanced competitive differentiation. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed six notable benefits that each each of our clients experience when transitioning to the cloud. These include:
- Clarification of business objectives and direction
- Improved resource planning
- Opportunities for strategic growth
- Improved technical operations
- Long-term approach to planning
- Creation of a greater partner selection strategy
Through the power of cloud-based technology, organizations can reduce workload and increase operational efficiency. Read on to learn more.
Clarification of business objectives and direction
Many organizations exist on a day-to-day basis. A move to the cloud requires an organization to consider its goals – from short to medium to long-term – and how they address new business opportunities. Understanding these goals determines the starting point for cloud migration.
Planning for a move to the cloud also helps set objectives for the whole organization. Not just around the technology stack, but also around objectives for risk tolerance, customer experience, and revenue planning. Moving to the cloud enables goal setting and action prioritization across the business.
Improved resource planning
A move to the cloud requires a comprehensive review of expertise within the organization. Can your small enterprise support infrastructure planning, management and migration? Is the IT infrastructure able to support and scale with a growth in new business opportunities?
Understanding the limitations of your internal team will guide the selection of prospective partners. If gaps exist in your small enterprise’s human talent capabilities, it’s important to understand how to fill out the team or to outsource to a partner with the appropriate expertise. If choosing the route to partner, you can also access their organizational expertise to support your organization’s growth over the long term.
Opportunities for strategic growth
Project teams can easily get caught up in the race to complete short term deliverables. By cultivating an understanding of the enterprise’s growth trajectory over the coming months and years, employees can shift their focus to include short, medium and long term success.
Planning a move to the cloud presents an opportunity to refine a small enterprise’s overall growth strategy, and ensures technology decisions can keep up with the enterprise’s rate of growth. Selecting infrastructure options that are inexpensive in the short term can end up costing more in the long run. If the enterprise outgrows the technology environment, short term costs saving become irrelevant.
A small enterprise planning a comprehensive move to the cloud needs to consider its strategic roadmap and stakeholder needs. By considering these needs, the small enterprise can maintain momentum and the capacity for ongoing growth.
Improved technical operations
An upgraded IT infrastructure may be the most obvious opportunity presented by migration to the cloud. Planning for cloud migration requires an assessment of the IT solutions that currently work, and those that don’t work. This is also the right time to fundamentally change the IT infrastructure. This may require consideration of new solutions outside your current technology stack that will better support your organization over the long term.
Long-term approach to planning
Finding the right cloud solution requires an understanding of your enterprise-wide goals and pain points. Assessing the current architecture, your business strategy, customer satisfaction promises and aligning against your IT roadmap is valuable not just as an IT planning exercise, but as a long-term planning exercise. It can even have positive impacts on team building; teams will understand that their visions and requirements are being addressed in the long-term IT plan. The plan will become a dedicated step in the path to the development and growth of your organization.
Creation of a partner selection strategy
A move to the cloud encourages an organization to consider the external experts required to facilitate success. When selecting these partnerships, consider not only expertise, but also experience and willingness to deploy a variety of infrastructure solutions. Your organization may require custom, specialized solutions; sign a partner that is willing to help you achieve your goals and offer a customized infrastructure solution. This process will ensure your technology stack facilitates business goals and exceeds the expectation of your business stakeholders.
A New Approach to Small Enterprise Infrastructure Management
Migration to the cloud is more than just a technology assessment exercise. It is an enterprise-wide goal setting opportunity that engages stakeholders, considers overall strategic goals, and puts a roadmap into action.
HostedBizz strives to help organizations plan their journey to the cloud. From cloud solutions to architecture support, our professional services team will work with your existing IT team to ensure that together, we set you on your path to operational efficiency, cost-savings and enhanced productivity.
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