If you have done any research on the benefits of moving to “the Cloud,” you are aware that there are many advantages to the strategy. By migrating your applications, internal services, and automated processes to the Cloud, you gain an increase in accessibility, scalability, flexibility, agility, productivity and security. In addition, you could also see an overall reduction in the total cost of ownership of your technology environment. However, making this shift is not only about technology. It is also about people, processes, leadership, culture, standardization, accountability and most importantly – change.
Zuggand has been involved in several large Cloud migration initiatives and has experienced first-hand the challenges organizations face when starting a Cloud migration. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be sharing our experiences with you – what works, what doesn’t work, and what you as an organization must do to be ready to move to the Cloud.
In order to be successful with your Cloud initiatives, you really need to focus in four major areas – culture, services, platform, and strategy. From our experience, culture tends to be one of the most challenging areas and that is where we will start.
Lesson #1 – Organizational Alignment
As with any major initiative, it is imperative that the entire team, from the Executive Team to Infrastructure to Applications to Support to Security, understand the objectives and be in alignment. If even one division is not on board with the transition, it will have a major impact on the project and could even potentially bring it to a slow, painful death. This is where leadership is absolutely critical. Moving to the Cloud requires a fundamental shift in the way an organization runs on a daily basis. Leadership must continuously be involved to ensure teams are striving towards the objectives.
As an example, one large customer set an objective that all of their infrastructure and applications should be moved to the Cloud within 18-24 months. All teams involved had to understand that this was the ultimate goal and Management had to ensure the work their teams performed on a daily basis helped move the entire organization toward that goal. If your teams are working in silos, it will be a big challenge to make your Cloud initiative a success.
Our next lesson will still focus on culture and how to prepare your organization for the change.
