6 Steps to Simple Cloud Adoption for Your Business

A recent study by IDG found that 69% of enterprises have either applications or infrastructure running in the cloud today, up 12% from 2012.

The cloud presents a great opportunity to elevate your business as it becomes more vital to forward thinking Enterprises everyday; therefore, implementing the cloud isn’t a matter of when, but how. Risk is always involved when implementing new technology, but bear in mind, many of the most successful businesses have seen incredible growth because of their migration to cloud computing. Your business can experience cloud-based growth as well, but you need to be willing to explore new opportunities in order to do so. Cloud computing is a service that’s helping businesses large and small reduce costs, increase information security, and develop new approaches to old school practices. Here are six steps to simple cloud adoption.

Understand What Cloud Can Do For You

Evaluate what cloud computing would mean in the eyes of your company. Cloud computing offers a wealth of platforms, tools and features that make small and large businesses processes easier, and more accessible. It allows employees to work remotely, to collaborate and share information on the fly, and offers an organization a safety net for important data assets. Does your organization require cloud capabilities to help serve your clientele? Whatever the structure of your business or enterprise, develop a vision for the ways that cloud will facilitate better business.

Determine Scope or Capacity of Cloud Adoption

Cloud is the flexible tool that can be scaled up, or down on the fly, depending upon circumstances. To what degree will your organization need cloud capabilities? The beauty of cloud, is that if business picks up due to growth, or a busy quarter or season, and your need for compute increases, rest assured that cloud will have you covered. It’s a great rule of thumb to start small, consider solutions that encompass a simple cloud infrastructure, and scale up as needed and as your business grows accustomed to the new technology.

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Choose the Most Appropriate Option

Once you have a better understanding of how cloud computing will be implemented within your organization, decide whether you need a public, private or hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud provides a safe solution for data backup to large businesses and enterprises, operating on-prem data storage, while ‘cloud bursting’ during times when the organization needs additional compute. It’s a good idea to conduct some market research to understand how similar businesses have leveraged cloud capabilities, to assess different cloud deployment challenges that other businesses have had, or take advantage of unique opportunities from specific vendors. Public cloud is the more cost-effective option, but this option innately comes with increased security risks. Private clouds, Though more expensive, provide a customizable option for large enterprises. Explore, and discover an appropriate option for your business.

Evaluate the Vendors

It’s essential to define what you expect in a service level agreement before heading to market. Identify what you hope to gain in a cloud solution, but don’t forget to make clear what you expect in quality of service, and make sure that you and your new vendor understand common policy and governance as you evaluate and develop a service level agreement. For vendor evaluation made easy, check out Solutions Review’s all-new 2016 Cloud Computing Platforms Buyer’s Guide, featuring ten questions to ask before purchasing, a full market overview, and detailed profiles of the top 28 Cloud Platform  companies and solution backgrounds, key features, and best use cases.

Take a Trial Run

If you’re not completely comfortable with the idea of cloud adoption, or are looking to fill in the grey areas of how this technology works, it’s always possible to take the product out for a spin. Many vendors allow businesses to test cloud solutions before they commit with a 30 day trial period. This will allow you to document changes throughout the business that the cloud product has both positively, and negatively, allowing you to confidently execute cloud adoption without living the the shadows of changing times.

Get Your Employees On Board

Adopting a new technology can be  trying, as not everyone sees technology as a helpful tool, rather, digital immigrants, may harbor resentment as the old ways of processing work give way to cloud, and technologies that protect businesses in today’s world of technical vulnerabilities. It is important  that you address questions and concerns before integrating a cloud solution into your operations. Try to engage the IT architect and development teams to develop suitable use cases for this deployment, and ask them to educate employees about how the technology will make work easier with the cloud solution. Explain why you’re adopting the new cloud service and how you expect them to support the organizational change.