7 Things to Do When Deciding on a Move to the Cloud

Companies move from on-premises applications to the cloud for a variety of reasons, including simplifying business processes, reducing business risk from aging technology, and automating transactions with AI and machine learning. Any move to the cloud needs to be carefully considered, though, both in terms of options and a transition plan. Disruption to the business from an ill-considered or poorly executed cloud transition simply cannot occur.

If your company is considering moving to the cloud, it’s all about planning and taking the right steps toward the implementation and beyond.

1. Start with an assessment

A good way to evaluate a move to the cloud – either as a full cloud transformation or via a hybrid on-prem and cloud scenario – is to engage an experienced implementation partner. Choose a partner that will help guide your decisions based on the pros and cons of various options based on your business needs, processes, and the technology that supports those processes.

Start with an assessment of your current situation and your choices. This will include your current state and pain points from both a business end-user and technology perspective as well as your future strategic goals. It’s important to consider the required functionality, business processes, and systems that support those processes. You should think first about whether a business function needs to exist. If it does, then it’s a question of how the system that supports that process currently works. Is it manual? Does it integrate with other system processes? Then think about the impact of a move to the cloud on the processes, are they going to work with cloud applications? What training is required? How do systems interrelate? Should all processes move to cloud systems? You’ll want to know if existing business processes are mature and stable and if business process modernization is impeded due to a lack of system capability. It could be that business growth is hampered by underperforming system solutions.

From the review of the business should come an opportunity matrix of what you could do, and a roadmap that includes a timeline, project plan, and estimated costs. This provides a business case, including TCO analysis, to implement the recommendation.

2. Make your decision

Following the assessment you know have a baseline to make your decision. With this information you enable business stakeholders to decide based on data, not just instinct. If the decision is made to move to the cloud, then it’s on to the next crucial step in the process…!

3. Plan, plan, plan

The assessment should be followed by a series of planning workshops to determine implementation options and map out functional and technical solutions. Make sure your project plan is outcome-driven, not just about IT system replacement, with an established strategy and roadmap that supports your organization’s goals. The adoption of standardized product-proven processes and practices is needed, along with all functional areas of the company considered, so the impact on each is known. Risk areas to keep in mind include resource constraints and competing initiatives, business ownership, and needed change management and process redesign.

4. Assemble the project team

Be sure to define and establish clear roles and responsibilities for the project team, including considerations around accountability, ownership, efficiency, and quality. Just as important is a committed and well-informed project manager and ensuring that the project team has a thorough understanding of the project mission, goals, and milestones. This type of clarity from the very beginning helps build a cohesive team and drive effective, timely communication.

5. Engage project leadership

A successful project needs executive sponsorship and management support of the project mission and project team. Executive buy-in ensures adequate project staffing for the expected goals and timeline to be met, having the right people in the right meetings. Business leadership support is also crucial to help implement any organizational and/or business function or process change.

6. Execute the project

As you approach user acceptance testing (UAT), it’s important that your data is clean, that functional leads are engaged from each area of the company impacted, and that your security setup of users’ roles and access is in place. Complete end-to-end testing is vital to mitigate issues coming up post go-live. You’ll want to start slowly with go-live processes, minimize volume for a few days, and roll out as a phased approach.

7. Partner with an experienced solution expert

Just as with the assessment, it’s important to have an experienced implementation partner and to use technology that’s going to work effectively for you. Oracle Cloud Applications are integrated, yet modular, thus allowing you to deploy what you need when you need it. There is no single migration path to Oracle Cloud. The correct path depends on your specific business needs. Within Argano, we have a dedicated team focused on Oracle — one that includes the combined expertise from longtime Oracle partner organizations specializing in ERP, SCM, HCM, and CX — creating one team for end-to-end enterprise modernization. Let us help you determine the right path to the cloud for your business. Contact us today.