Your Cloud Adoption Plan Step 3 – Prove Its Worth

Now that you’ve completed the first two major milestones on the way to a full cloud transition, it is time to plan and execute the third. The exciting part is that this step requires you to truly use cloud computing for the first time. The key to this step is choosing an application that is easy to execute and has a high probability of a win. You don’t want your first implementation to fail, or your company will start to doubt if moving to the cloud is the right idea. Remember from our last post that you need to engage your Change Management Team (CMT) during this process. Ideally, this decision needs to come from the execution plan they developed.

Keep It Simple

The vast majority of corporate initiatives fail for a variety of reasons, one of which is by simply overdoing it. It is imperative that you, and the CMT, keep your initial execution goals simple. Remember, you are not only managing a major shift in your company’s operational paradigm – there is a business that needs to keep functioning as well! Set realistic expectations and focus on cloud applications that are simple to carry out and will have a notable outcome. Here are some examples to get you thinking.

AI Developed Marketing

Odds are the computing platform that you have decided to use will come with some default artificial intelligence (AI) applications. As AI is one of the foremost reasons to switch to the cloud, it is a great idea to use it to help formulate personalized marketing for your clientele. Individually focused advertising is well known and it will be easy to demonstrate its effectiveness. You need to look no further than the success of Google or Amazon to understand how far you could take it. By using the AI already available in your platform, you are almost guaranteed a win.

Customer Analytics

One of your first applications could be the use of cloud-based analysis to help predict future market conditions, giving your company the chance to be proactive in customer attraction and retention. The cloud can help process data such as your customer’s spending habits, preferences, and their social media use to help predict where you need to focus your future product development. You can analyze the same data in several different ways to help you develop a rewards program or to further personalize the online experience for repeat clientele. Like the personalized marketing example, you almost can’t lose with this type of application and the results are easy to quantify.

Cloud-Based Redundancy

Another idea for your first application is to provide redundancy for one of your company’s vital functions that would be cost-prohibitive to do onsite. An easy example here would be a full backup of your company’s payment transaction system. You can easily imagine the hardware and labor costs to implement 100 percent redundancy of such a critical system, even without giving consideration to the necessary real estate. This type of application is exactly why you are moving to the cloud, so why not demonstrate it right away?

Focus and Execute

While the implications of failure loom large at this stage, don’t let over-analysis paralyze you. Once you have chosen a route, focus and execute. Plan carefully and thoroughly, but don’t get rattled if things go awry. Rely on the CMT. You have an engaged team backing you and there is no better way to learn cloud-computing than real world experience on an actual project. You and your team will learn invaluable and highly-marketable skills along the way.

It is also worth remembering that you can rely on outside resources to augment your team through their first implementation. Seeking the right expertise is a wise move and will increase your probability of success tremendously. It may not be easy, but once you’re able to demonstrate the value of the cloud to your company, they will realize it was the right choice all along.