How Cloud-ready are you?

From infrastructure cloud to software cloud, application or even business cloud (e.g. business process as a service) cloud has become a major interest for both providers and consumers worldwide. When tons of money are being invested in cloud development and with such a diverse offering, it’s no surprise that more and more companies are looking into moving toward cloud in the near future - as per Gartner estimates, this year the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 17%.

But no matter how simple would cloud vendors make it for customers to license and pay for using the cloud, the reality of moving to cloud is much more complex. If you are a new born company starting your business directly in cloud is one thing, but if you’re a full grown one, with dozens or hundreds of on-premise software, hundreds or thousands of employees and multiple entities spread worldwide, you will soon realize that moving to cloud can prove to be a complicated, dreadful and time-consuming project and it all starts with finding out how cloud-ready you are.

When asked, most companies would say that they’re looking to move to cloud to boost agility and cut costs but if they don’t have full visibility of all IT costs at the start, any cost savings identified as part of a cloud migration will be “finger in the air” estimates. It will be also very hard to determine if it makes financial sense to move certain workloads to the cloud or leave them where they are.

The aim of this article is to help you get an idea on what cloud-readiness means before making any investment into cloud.

In a nutshell, you should look at the current costs, people, the processes and the technology to assess the maturity and capability status for your organization.

? Current costs

If one of your main reasons for moving to cloud is cost reduction, then you first need to see how much you are currently paying for IT. You should begin by undertaking a cost transparency exercise to establish a baseline and for this you would need a strong contract management practice. You will need an overview of all IT related costs from hardware to software and maintenance for both (tip! software license support and maintenance is the costliest for organizations as in general, software vendors apply a yearly indexation rate to this cost). By breaking IT costs in smaller chunks, it will be easier to identify areas where savings can be made.

In addition, a ‘before and after’ cost analysis would help you model different cloud options (e.g. IaaS, PaaS and SaaS), as well as single versus multi-cloud, and determine the best option for you and the most cost-effective approach.

As easy as it might sound, if your organization doesn’t have a contract management practice, this task can be tremendous.

? People

When moving workloads to cloud there is also a considerable change management exercise that will affect your organization on all levels from top management to end-user. Cloud transformation requires an understanding of the end user requirements, alignment to business objectives and an overall clear strategy (migration, adoption, objectives).

? Processes

While cloud comes with numerous advantages it also poses certain risks that should be mitigated through clear governance procedures. This way you will ensure that everyone in the organization is aware of the rules surrounding the use of cloud services and prevent money leaks. New skills and adoption of change are a significant part of the cloud transformation as well.

? Technology

Another area that you would need to look into is the technology demand. As business grow and software evolve constantly, you will find you have legacy software that can raise one of the following challenges:

·         software is not used but support and maintenance are still paid for it;

·        the support from the software vendor has reached end of life thus exposing your software to security risks;

·        old software might not be cloud compatible. Not all software can be migrated to cloud so a technology clean up is recommended before the cloud transformation.

You should also verify that there’s no redundant support and maintenance that you need to terminate. Once you have an inventory of your license estate and current usage, you will need to assess your future technical requirements as well.

There’s no doubt that moving to the cloud comes along with many benefits. But it’s impossible to evaluate the true cost implications without first having a single, granular view of all current expenditure. To gain the agility from the cloud that allows your business to turn on a sixpence, you first need to be sure you are cloud ready.

We know from experience that many organizations, due to complex environments, insufficient resources, and lack of specialist knowledge are unable to assess and manage IT transformation and change projects within their environment. Particularly when moving from on premise to Cloud, organizations need to make the correct strategic decisions based on accurate information in order to avoid unnecessary risks being taken. 

If you find yourself in need of help to assess your organization’s cloud readiness or if you have any questions around this topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our experts.