Top Reasons To Revamp Your Cloud Data Strategy

Introduction

More and more companies are moving to the cloud for easy data storage and to boost technology innovations. Modern businesses understand the strategic competitive advantage and availability of customized applications to suit their needs. Especially during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, many companies are considering letting go of their onsite infrastructure and hardware, opting instead to store their data on remote servers, a process known as cloud storage.

Cloud storage makes sense for business survival, pushing all enterprises to move faster. Going forward, more and more companies will need experts who understand what cloud computing is and how it can help their business. These same people monitor and implement an organization’s end-to-end cloud computing journey.

Now more than ever cloud migration is imperative to avoid glitches in infrastructure, as the market is trying to survive the pandemic.

In an Aug. 2, 2021 report, Gartner compared worldwide public cloud services end-user spending and 2022 forecasts, which suggest:

• $171,915 million for Cloud Application Services (SaaS)
• $121,620 million for Cloud System Infrastructure Services (IaaS)
• $100,636 million for Cloud Application Infrastructure Service (PaaS)

Many companies are looking at how they can focus on their technological and process reengineering needs. Why consider revamping your cloud strategy and what steps should you take to successfully complete the reboot?

5 Reasons to Revamp Your Cloud Strategy

There are five main reasons to revamp your cloud strategy today:

1. 1.Becoming more agile in terms of the ability to adjust to customer orders
2. 2.Better position to adopt next-generation software
3. 3.Monitoring the transition in terms of equipment and people
4. 4.Improving data security
5. 5.Building a skilled worker base

Becoming more agile

Every organization has a specific roadmap layed out to fulfill the big picture of their IT landscape. Being agile lets your company quickly change the pace at which it adapts the transformative–and at times, disruptive—process of moving into a cloud-centric architecture. By restructuring your cloud strategy, IT departments can move from slowly delivering big, single-origin and rigid applications to rapidly deploying flexible, smaller applications. Some people call this process, “byte-sized transformations.”

Revamping your cloud transformation also affects your software development lifecycle. Making changes helps make the company and its staff more nimble. It can conduct continuous development (CD) and continuous integration (CI) using the DevOps model to boost your overall business.

Better position to adopt next-generation software

The future of cloud computing is all about speeding up the process of application development. Companies are adopting cutting-edge technological advancements like artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics and machine learning (ML). An organization’s strategists must determine if their IT roadmap can access and use these cloud-native solutions.

In today’s virtual world, everything is connected. A rapid innovative delivery model is needed to predict future customer demand after analyzing historical data. Your company IT team can achieve its goal with better accuracy by starting with cloud transformation and ending at the ultimate goal: full optimization.

Cloud technologies like Microsoft’s Azure, and Power Platform efficiently handle day to day business operations while also letting your company work toward its long term strategic vision.

Monitoring the transition

No matter what solutions your organization decides to employ, the changeover needs to be watched carefully. Implementing a cloud strategy affects the organization and its people. The entire update needs intricate monitoring of the transformation through:

• An infrastructure supporting the organization’s cloud journey.
• On-boarding experts who train workers while implementing the upgrades, boosting the staff’s digital skill levels.

One way to achieve your goals is a willingness to alter your implementation strategy so it aligns your roadmap with a comprehensive cloud transition plan.

“Through 2022, at least 95% of cloud security failures are predicted to be the customer’s fault.”Source: Gartner

Improving data security

The instant data moves online, companies start worrying about security and data privacy. Backing your cloud strategy with a robust infrastructure like Microsoft Azure ensures the security, authenticity and longevity of your organization’s data, processes and applications is not compromised. The Azure platform is continually evaluated and updated automatically to protect against potential security threats.

Building a skilled worker base

Moving away from in-house technology to the cloud can impact roles, responsibilities and accountability across a company’s organization. Having a strategic plan to make the move should also include making sure workers are able to take advantage of the new technology.

Especially when it comes to Customer Service, the relationship between companies and their customers is more than just “order to shipments.” Solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance use artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to more accurately forecast customer behaviors and needs.

Steps to Revamp Your Cloud Strategy

While every organization has its set of challenges and requirements when it comes to strategic rethinking of its cloud journey, some pointers to remember are:

• Build and update your employees’ skills to ensure your organization’s cloud migration is successful. A comprehensive, organization-wide training plan is an integral part of any migration.
• It’s ok to make the change one step at a time to make it easier to move from older programs to newer ones.
• Take advantage of predictive data analytics to preempt the expected technical and operational glitches.
• Define your cloud milestones before starting your migration. Stick to them. Your strategic roadmap to cloud reboot is going to be as unique as your requirements.
• Create a blueprint of the cloud revamp and let it guide you at the pace of your employees’ ability to accept the changes.
• Hire highly-skilled subject matter experts to make the end-to-end implementation of a new cloud strategy as smooth as possible.

Revamping your cloud strategy may sound unnecessary but following these suggestions will benefit your organization. Taking in a broader, “30,000-foot view” of the core of your cloud journey makes it easier to create your transformative blueprint.

Key takeaways

• Cloud infrastructure is a comprehensive and disruptive technology that helps businesses operate more efficiently.
• Rethinking your cloud architecture helps you achieve your cloud computing goals.
• Ensure your transition is compatible with cloud-native solutions such as IoT, AI and machine learning.
• Moving to the cloud works better when your staff knows how to get the most out of it.
• For added security, many organizations take advantage of products like Microsoft Azure.