Increase your business value by investing in a cloud transformation strategy

Cloud transformation enables your organization to adopt new technology quickly, respond to immediate market needs, and scale your business operations.

A recent report by McKinsey & Company concludes that leaders need to accelerate their journey to the cloud to digitize quickly and effectively.

There is no better time to move to the cloud than now. Cloud transformation is a force of innovation and a catalyzer of organizational growth. Innovation is never too early or too late; it is always the right time to innovate and digitize your business processes.

Below is a cloud transformation strategy guide we’ve compiled to get you started on your cloud transformation migration.

What is cloud transformation?

Cloud transformation is moving your operations to the cloud per your company’s business objectives. Migrating to the cloud involves modifying, upgrading, and moving an organization’s applications, ranging in complexity, purpose, and criticality, from on-premise or co-located hardware.

You don’t necessarily have to commit fully. Start by migrating and connecting only some of your apps, software programs, and data. Once you feel confident, you can move the rest of your company’s infrastructure to the cloud.

Cloud transformation involves:

• Moving company data to the cloud.
• Migrating apps and software programs.
• Moving company data to the cloud.
• Ultimately transforming your entire IT infrastructure.

The amount of time it takes to reach your cloud transformation goals depends on the complexity of your operation. If you’ve already adopted some cloud technology, migrating your remaining systems to the cloud could only take a few months. Your migration could take much longer if you don’t use cloud services.

Cloud transformation services enable faster time to market

Companies often have an outdated IT infrastructure, making it highly challenging to keep up with increasing product and service demands and expectations. 

These aging legacy structures and applications must be replaced for businesses to grow and develop competitively. Migrating to the cloud will allow your platforms to deliver on-demand and integrate new digital customer experiences much faster and more efficiently.

Cloud transformation can: 

• lower company hardware costs 
• integrate new processes and features fast 
• ensure seamless service 
• automate the development and testing of your applications
• enable platforms that provide analytics necessary for business growth. 
• make your IT infrastructure more agile and flexible.

Your customers need great products and experiences, and they need them now. 

Cloud transformation will dramatically increase the speed at which you can innovate and bring new features and products to market before your competitors, making you the industry standard-setter. Cloud transformation will allow you to experiment with the latest innovations in search of ideas that work well for your business and your end users.

Cloud transformation enables access to analytics, resulting in more informed and effective business decisions.

Migrating to the cloud allows the support of highly distributed IoT networks. It opens up the capacity of cloud computing, which provides valuable insights and universal access. Since services are platform-independent, they are accessible across many devices. The only requirement is an internet connection.

• Enables faster and more effective data analysis than on-premise solutions.
• Increases mobility and productivity since it allows staff to collaborate on projects more easily. 
• Increases storage capacity since you pay for the storage you need–increase or decrease storage as you go. (This is also highly cost-effective.)
• It handles enormous volumes of data from the Internet of Things- related digital sensors.
• Supports using artificial intelligence and other systems that identify business opportunities.
• Solves operational problems much faster.
• Leverages automation to enhance cloud operations and outcomes with minimal human intervention.
• Provides a testing environment to efficiently create and test new products and services.

Creating a cloud transformation strategy

Starting something new is always intimidating. Drawing on our experience with clients, we’ve put together a cloud transformation roadmap to prepare you best and simplify your cloud transformation journey.

However, there are unknowns in any journey. 

Be agile. Don’t overthink. Start now. The help you need is available.

1. Define your business objective: the short-term and long-term cloud visions.

Before you begin on the technical side, align your focus and expectations for the cloud transformation.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Why do you want to migrate the business?
• Do you want to find new ways to store your data?
• What resources do you have?
• Do you want to make your business more scalable?
• Do you want to have more centralized data storage?

The answers to these questions will determine your cloud transformation strategy. Whether to go with the cloud-native or lift-and-shift migration approach will become apparent.

2. Establish a core team responsible for the cloud transformation.

Establish a dedicated team that would lead the process of cloud transformation and be responsible for implementing and developing the transformation roadmap. Once your business objectives are clear, assess your ability to execute with existing internal resources and, if necessary, engage an experienced partner.

Cloud transformation requires expertise and experience. Don’t underestimate the time and effort needed to migrate to the cloud. It is a full-time job. When looking for a partner, focus on their past cases to evaluate compatibility with your goals.

Finding a good partner for your cloud transformation journey is crucial to determining the outcome. Take time to research and test the collaboration properly.

All further steps of the cloud transformation can be taken together with your partner who supports the initiative.

3. Outline possible cloud transformation constraints.

Understanding the risks and limitations of the process specific to your business allows you to develop the best mitigation strategies, or you may eliminate constraints to avoid any possible setbacks. It also shows which parts of the process need the most attention, focus, and priority.

Constraints may include:

• not understanding what cloud transformation is
• your company culture
• inability to find a good cloud transformation partner
• impact on existing operational models is too hard to control

Once your vision is established, it and the value of cloud initiatives must be articulated and well-socialized among all parties affected. Leaders and influencers must actively engage and support the change.

4. Establish cloud transformation metrics.

Establishing a concrete metrics system will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction. Focus on metrics that are most important for the process you’ve outlined. 

Metrics show your migration-in-progress, illuminating visible or invisible problems hiding within your application.

5. Choose an application to migrate. Start small.

Our experience suggests starting with applications that are

• not mission-critical
• consume the least resources,
• are expected to experience quick growth.

Mission-critical applications are usually not good candidates for migrating first since any problems they experience can cause more significant issues throughout the business.

Cloud updates are relatively quick and easy compared to on-site updates, and scalability allows the number of users to be increased easily.

6. Choose the right cloud provider.

Select a partner that matches your needs and ethics.
There are many cloud providers in the market, both public and private.
Start by evaluating what matters most to you:

• brand
• capacity
• cost
• customer support
• security

7. Consider multi-cloud

By choosing multiple cloud providers, businesses can take advantage of the best parts of each provider’s services, customizing them to suit their needs and expectations.

Additionally, a multi-cloud strategy gives organizations greater ownership over their data, reduces the risk of downtime, and arms them with negotiating leverage. It lets them shop around for service needs from multiple vendors.

8. Make sure your process is aligned with the GDPR.

When moving data to the cloud, you should not only make sure data is safe but also be certain that sensitive data is not distributed uncontrolled since data may be transferred from one location to another or hosted in multiple locations simultaneously.

At this stage, you may face GDPR challenges. Here are the steps necessary regarding the GDPR:

• Data Protection Officer – GDPR law stipulates that companies must appoint Data Protection Officers.
• Data breach notification and coordination – a contract with a cloud provider must define breach notification obligations.
• Data ownership – make sure you own the data, not the cloud provider
• The right to be forgotten – if an EU resident no longer wants their data to be processed or stored, they can request the complete removal of data, and you and the cloud provider must guarantee this
• Although the GDPR can be frightening since it’s connected with high fines, you should not worry if you have the exemplary cloud architecture, cloud transformation partner, the right cloud provider, and the correct processes in place.

Using a cloud transformation services provider enhances service scalability and the digital customer experience.

In a recent case for a global heating system provider, Proekspert delivered a complete, cloud-based software solution that contributed to a single platform, allowing sharable and reusable components and service scalability.

Moving the customer’s online system to the cloud brought scalability, flexibility, and stability. The online solution and a mobile application allowed end users to control their heat pumps from anywhere. Installers may now monitor and troubleshoot issues on the go, and the customer may use collected data to develop better and more energy-efficient products.

Results of effective cloud migration:

• Significant savings were had by examining how a system runs and making changes to the configuration.
• End users expect a heat map to work flawlessly and, if a problem arises, action to be taken quickly. Proekspert built an online monitoring tool to enable timely action, a critical part of service for end users, making heat pumps a service as commonplace as water or electricity.
• Even if not all users use the online solution, many are happy to know they have a trusted option. The client is now focused on building new products instead of servicing the existing system at much lower costs.

With smart algorithms and analytics enabled by the cloud, data is analyzed more effectively, and a company can react to changes significantly faster.

Adopting a cloud transformation strategy drives innovation for your IT infrastructure and overall company culture. 

Technology is only a part of the solution. 

Integrating this technology into your company’s processes and culture is the real challenge. The technological capability and experience exist to ensure an effective cloud transformation for you. Deciding what is better for your company’s comfort zone and how far you can stretch it to learn and develop would be best.

Cloud transformation reduces the overall capital expenditure while maximizing efficiency and productivity. Innovation never comes without risk. It is what you can gain despite these risks that matters. 

“Cloud infrastructures stand at the core of many transformation initiatives.”

A transformation is incomplete if it does not ultimately change your mindset, making you more innovative and less afraid to experiment. When you begin a cloud transformation, you will notice other aspects of your business that are technologically unfit for current demands. These will require change or upgrade.

You may need to update some of your legacy systems to move to the cloud effectively. This will give a needed boost to your IT infrastructure innovation and open up many other technological possibilities.

Start your cloud transformation now. You are ready. 

Cloud transformation in the current global market state is necessary to remain competitive, and it’s an essential component of any innovative organizational strategy. It is the prerequisite step for digital transformation initiatives.

Cloud transformation brings about many benefits for businesses across all industries. For it to be successful, you need a clear cloud transformation roadmap and, if necessary, engage an experienced partner. The cloud provides agility, scalability, stability, flexibility, and access to innovative analytics applications. All of your business development and operations can be improved with the cloud. Moreover, you can better connect with customers and improve and empower your employee culture. 

When the opportunity is no longer interrupted by outdated technology, your team stops wasting time and resources. It focuses on what matters most: bringing more value to your customers and your business. Begin your cloud transformation now. Share your challenge with us, and we will grow your business together.

Cloud Transformation FAQs

What are the benefits of cloud transformation?

The market needs change fast and often, and cloud transformation’s principal value for any business is the ability to quickly onboard the latest technology and rapidly adapt and respond to market needs.

Cloud transformation allows for:

• new potential revenue streams
• increased operational efficiency
• sharable and reusable components
• optimization of business process costs
• centralized network security
• better analytics
• enhanced ability to react to user needs
• the lowering of analytics costs (just as mining big data in the cloud has made the analytics process less costly)
• better business continuity and disaster recovery

How does using the cloud enable digital transformation?

Cloud computing gives businesses the agility and innovation needed to thrive in the digital era. It enables rapid deployment of new applications and services, reducing time-to-market. Organizations can experiment with new ideas, test prototypes, and iterate quickly.

How is cloud computing cost-saving?

Cloud computing provides natural economies of scale, allowing businesses to pay only for what they need. This reduces costs by optimizing software licenses and hardware or storage purchases on-premise or within the data center.

Some of the most popular cost-savings benefits of the cloud include:

• No upfront hardware and software purchases
• Reduced spending on computing, storage, networking, and security
• Reductions in operational costs, maintenance, and upgrade expenses
• Reduction in operation-oriented personnel

How do I find a reputable cloud transformation partner?

Ensure they have the following:

1. A portfolio and case studies.
2. They have delivered a high success rate for the digital transformation journey.
3. Experience in achieving internal alignment, fixing existing internal resource issues, and the types of support they can provide to your business.
4. Must have a history of innovation.