Don’t Move Existing Systems to the Cloud

The scarcest resource in IT is not hardware, software, budget or qualified employees – it’s management attention.

That’s why you should spend your precious time where it makes the biggest impact. Moving an existing system to the cloud might save you some money; people who have done it typically realize a saving of 10-20%. That is not to be sniffed at, but these projects do take enormous effort. Every interface has to be considered and there are security and network considerations. Additionally, both internal IT and the business is likely to question and argue against the decision.

You should therefore be spending your time making sure new systems are built in the cloud. They will be cheaper and faster to get off the ground with modern cloud tools, and you can quickly demonstrate running code to the business. The return on the invested management time is vastly better for new systems. And for many of your legacy applications, it will be easiest to build a new system that provides 80% of the benefit of the old system before you start the discussion about decommissioning your legacy applications.

Calculate the value of new systems and you will see where the return on invested time is greatest. It will not be in projects to migrate legacy to the cloud.

I’d be happy to help you calculate the value of both new and existing systems so you can spend your time where it matters most. Connect with me here on LinkedIn so we can discuss how to work together.

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