Three Key Questions to ask When Making the Business Case for Cloud Adoption November 27, 2020 The global coronavirus pandemic has frozen IT budgets for many organizations as they struggle to predict what lies ahead. One area where IT spending has actually increased is in the cloud, which is forecasted to grow 6.3% in 2020 to a total of $257.9 billion, and is anticipated to continue to grow rapidly as economies reopen. For companies not yet in the cloud, but considering migration, now might be the right time to build a business case for your cloud adoption framework. Here are three questions to ask internally in order to help get you on the path to cloud migration. #1. What’s Your Motivation for Moving to the Cloud? Reasons for wanting to move to the cloud are varied and nearly endless. From speed and time to market, to modernization, scalabilities and cost efficiencies to enhanced security, rapid implementation and simplified application hosting, every organization has a unique motivation for wanting to migrate to the cloud. As you build your business case for your own organization’s migration, it’s important to identify and articulate the motivations behind this desire to move which may include: Cost efficiencies Scalability Enhanced security Rapid implementation Simplified application hosting Whatever your motivations might be, they’re critical to helping you build a solid business case for migrating to the cloud, and will help ensure you get what you need once you start the migration process. #2. What’s Driving That Motivation to Migrate to the Cloud? For many organizations, a compelling event is what spurs on the steps towards a cloud migration. This compelling event could be the end of support or a lease renewal for on premise hardware. It might be a merger or an acquisition, which suddenly creates a more complex and disparate IT environment. Or, as has been the case in 2020 for many organizations, it might be a global pandemic, driving the necessity for most employees to work from home, creating a need for more flexibility when it comes to accessing data. The introduction of a compelling event is often the perfect time to make the move to the cloud as it can place your organization at a crossroads, which, many times, is tied to spend. As you build out your business case for migration, use this compelling event as a catalyst for making the change. #3. What’s Preventing You From Moving to the Cloud? Reasons for not moving to the cloud can be as plentiful as the reasons for making the move. Perhaps you’re in a highly regulated industry, such as financial services or healthcare, and are worried about staying compliant when you move data off premises. Maybe your organization doesn’t have the relevant skill sets in house to be able to operate and eventually innovate in the cloud. Also, you might be worried about business interruption as you migrate, and worry about critical applications being inaccessible during the move or not working the same way afterwards. You may not feel confident in what kind of cloud infrastructure deployment is right for your business –– Public cloud? Private cloud? Hybrid cloud? All of these are valid and very real reasons that cause some sleepless nights for those considering migration. The good news is that they can all be managed and mitigated when you have the right partner for your cloud migration journey. Make sure that you articulate your concerns within your business case, detailing the challenges you foresee and share them with a Cloud Managed Service Provider (MSP), who can help you mitigate these potential issues. How a Cloud Managed Service Provider Can Help A Cloud MSP is an expert in the cloud –– it’s all they do. The deep knowledge and experience within the cloud environment that a Cloud MSP brings to the table can help you realize your motivations for wanting to move to the cloud and alleviate any of your hesitations around migration. They’re able to work with you to provide the right mix of cloud models tailored to your requirements. Additionally, they’re experts in compliance, cost optimization, cloud security, and the tools needed to innovate within the cloud. Consider a Cloud Assessment The best way to understand where you need to go is to have a roadmap. A cloud assessment, conducted by an expert cloud MSP, can help build that roadmap for you. Here’s what you can expect from a cloud assessment: It’ll start with a deep dive into your organization’s business and IT strategy and getting a good understanding of your current state of technology in order to put you on the right path. It creates an inventory of applications, infrastructure and network assets in a process of workload discovery and analysis. This helps to ensure that you’re moving the right applications and trouble-shoots any potential concerns you might have about migration. It identifies the target state platform, pulling together target infrastructure design using the optimal cloud platforms. This often includes a few options for comparison to align to your budget and pace of migration It factors in costs of the future overall cloud spend for your organization It offers up options for cloud migration and managed cloud services that you may want to consider once you begin your journey Carbon60 offers a cloud assessment for organizations wanting to begin their move to the cloud. To learn more about how Managed Cloud Services can assist you as you embark on your cloud journey, click here to get started. Carbon60 is an MSP dedicated to helping businesses maximize the performance and security of their core application infrastructure with an agnostic cloud approach using public and hosted private clouds. A partner with both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, we have the experience and the expertise to support organizations wherever they might be on their cloud journey.
