Cloud computing is not a new concept by any means, but there’s no denying that last year’s pandemic and the shift to remote work enablement significantly increased adoption. Cloud technology is now widely used, and businesses dedicate valuable resources to evaluate, implement, manage, and maintain their cloud environments. Although the cloud is certainly the way of the future, there are still plenty of successful businesses out there that have not taken the leap yet. For whatever reason, they are only now trying to figure out how to move their systems from on-premise to the cloud.
When you look back at what technology has shaped the last 30 years, the driving forces behind change and innovation often revolves around faster performance, better data access, barrier to entry, manageable infrastructure, increased security—or all five. Cloud is a vital ingredient to all of those motivating forces today, and ultimately, the most substantial reason behind the urgency to eliminate on-premise servers and migrate to a cloud or hybrid environment.
Putting Business Needs Before Features and Functionality
Clients First Partner, Jeff Warwick, recently tackled this subject on the new Dynamic Communities Decision Acceleration Community (DAC) News Desk with host John Siefert. In this informative 15-minute episode that you can watch below, John and Jeff discuss the Clients First approach to cloud migration and the importance of defining business needs before investing in any new technology.
The philosophy at Clients First is to always focus on ensuring the business owner understands the business case for changing the technology first. When you clearly define your pain points and understand where changing the technical environment and operational processes can improve the business, you can then find a solution that best fits your situation. As Jeff puts it, “If we have a good fit, we will go down that path. But if not, we’ll disengage. It has to be successful, or it’s not worth doing.”
With over 36 years of experience in enterprise software, Jeff elaborates on how the need for business transformation has evolved over the years, but the core motivation for adopting new ERP technology has stayed the same: disintegration of data. Dealing with different islands of data and redundant data entry between systems is the root cause behind not being able to get one version of the truth and the primary reason behind changing business technology.
To find out more, listen to the full conversation below:
The key message here is that if you are considering moving your on-premise systems to a cloud or hybrid environment, you need to define the “why.” Why are you considering the change? Focus on business improvement goals and processes (and getting them right) before throwing technology at the problem.
As you know, we’re all about finding the right fit for your needs. To help you focus on the pain and not the symptoms when managing a cloud migration or ERP shift, we’re offering a risk-free discovery call with Jeff and the team.
