Cloud computing has become a dynamic business trend and rightfully so - it has significant impact on the way you do business, now and into the future. And while it may be hard to imagine your company functioning without your legacy hardware, outsourcing your IT infrastructure is more than just an interesting way to reduce IT costs, it’s critical to the sustainability of your business.

Looking for the Right Cloud Provider

When it comes time to source viable hosting candidates and make the migration as successful as possible, it’s important to invest the right amount of effort and time into the process. Sometimes, the best way to do that, in addition to collaborating with your fellow executives and internal IT leaders, is to get the help of an IT sourcing advisor – they can help you identify the pitfalls and misconceptions that should be avoided.

Delving into cloud computing is a complex undertaking filled with challenges and risks and an advisor can be an objective voice of reason. This is more than just a better IT solution; converting to cloud computing can help resolve some of the key challenges that top management face.

Managing Risk During Adoption

With any major organizational change, it’s important you assess, understand, and evaluate the risks of cloud computing. Challenges to cloud adoption come in all sizes, shapes, and severities. When it comes to security and privacy, the risks are obvious - having valuable enterprise data residing outside your corporate walls will naturally raise some concerns. But security isn’t a cloud computing issue; it’s more of a cloud service provider issue. While some providers excel at it, others may not even have it in their business model.

Increasing Governance and Service Monitoring

Since outsourcing effectively reduces direct control over your valuable resources and assets, another challenge to introducing the cloud for your IT infrastructure is how much governance and service monitoring you’ll need to implement. Finding the right cloud provider is the first step, but making sure that they perform when you need them to is the next - factors like availability, quality and performance improvement will be important to monitor and therefore, the surrounding governance must be heavily considered. A successful cloud implementation will drive internal customer satisfaction but only if the transition is effectively managed.

Overcoming Cultural Barriers Within the Company

Whether it’s an executive worried about the possibility of sensitive information being leaked or your staff anxious about learning an entirely new set of processes and tools, the fear of change could be one of the biggest hindrances to having a successful migration. Experienced and professional outsourcing candidates will understand that introducing the cloud may come with hurdles, so value-adds like training, support, and education can be a key factor when selecting the right vendor.

Enlisting the help of an IT sourcing advisory group can help you gain a more insightful view into all aspects of the process. There’s no clear-cut path to successfully outsourcing, especially when you have decades of legacy IT investments, but when you’re honest about the potential challenges and pitfalls that introducing the cloud brings, you can better plan and successfully prepare for the transition.