When it comes to a cloud migration, it’s important to first define value. Migrating to the cloud takes time and money: the ultimate benefits to the organization’s bottom line must be quantified for the benefits to the company to be obvious.
Here are some helpful thoughts to consider when justifying the costs of a cloud migration.
Why Do Businesses Hesitate When It Comes to New Technology?
“44% of senior executives would be willing to write off IT legacy investments and move straight to the cloud if they could find a solution that provided speed to value.”
Investing in new technology is all about value, and that is very true when it comes to the operation of the all-important contact center in businesses. Executives don’t hesitate due to an overall fear of technology. Rather, there is a mentality of “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” If current systems are performing adequately, there is no perceived advantage to updating technology.
Also, when technology is updated, there is often an immediate disruption in business processes. Systems must be research and purchased. Employees must be trained. Executives might be reluctant, having seen “new” technology come and go, and are not always eager to leap aboard the newest trends. They are probably more likely to wait until there is clear value for the business and its infrastructure.
Finally, it’s not always immediately advantageous to switch to a newer technology, especially if a business has already invested quite a bit into its infrastructure. Instead, the organization must look at the value of the technology to the business overall, including the speed at which the technology can be and should be implemented.
Quantifying the Value of a Cloud Migration
When assessing the value of a cloud migration, an audit of the company’s existing processes and technology would be helpful. Existing on-premise technology can be compared to new cloud migration solutions.
A company may find that even their relatively current technology is not up to par with services available in the cloud. They may also find that some of its systems and processes are working as well as they can, and that a partial cloud migration may be more beneficial. Every company is different and has its own challenges and benefits.
A cloud distribution model makes it possible to explore the migration of smaller initiatives, considering the benefits of cloud migration for individual system processes. A cloud migration doesn’t necessarily need to occur on a wide scale: instead, companies can invest on small, focused initiatives that are going to immediately deliver value to the business.
Identifying the Company’s Major Pain Points
One of the easiest ways in which to find the value associated with cloud migration is to look towards major pain points within the company that could be resolved through cloud migration. Identifying the areas where either time or money are presently being lost allow you to find solutions.
Over time, many companies find that their business processes grow organically. When there are issues with a system, you create a “work-around” rather than just fixing the problem. Issues within the IT infrastructure accrue, growing larger each time. And the company ultimately has to address these major pain points if it’s going to avoid becoming slowly more inefficient.
Integrating Smaller Cloud Initiatives Into a Broader Cloud Plan
A value-first strategy will often begin with smaller cloud initiatives which take care of the areas that can deliver the most value to the organization. From there, these smaller cloud initiatives can be integrated into a broader cloud migration plan, eventually transitioning all the company’s infrastructure into the cloud.
There are a number of advantages to this type of strategy. Rather than having to invest a significant amount of time and money into transitioning the company at once, a company can choose the areas that are most important to it. These areas will begin delivering value immediately, leaving the company breathing room to transition its other services later on. Starting small allows the company to test the waters.
Not only does this show the value of cloud migration to executives, and create proven value, but it also prevents significant disruption of the company’s processes. Rather than having to invest in a large scale transition, the company can allow employees to slowly adapt to and train on new technology.
Of course, a broader cloud plan should always be in mind, and that’s where a partner steps in. An IT partner is able to organize a transition that contains many moving parts, making sure that these transitions occur seamlessly and are as non-disruptive as possible.
The Cloud Migration of a Contact Center
Cloud migrations improve ROI in a number of ways, not only refining contact center efficiency but also providing a better overall customer experience. Calculating the ROI of a cloud migration should include not only costs savings but also other intangible aspects such as increased customer retention due to improved customer response times.
A step by step process for cloud migration can help a company capture as much value as possible without disrupting its overall services. Through an progressive migration, one feature at a time, companies are able to immediately begin capturing value from cloud migrations without investing in a full scale deployment.
Of course, any type of major IT infrastructure change for a contact center can be quite complex, and it does require professional, IT services to help. A managing IT partner can help build a company a roadmap towards complete cloud deployment, with multiple phases of deployment meant to capture value as quickly as possible. Contact us for further information on how we can help you through the process.
