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In today's uncertain landscape, many entrepreneurs and managers think that to future-proof their businesses, they need to overhaul their cloud migration since the rest of the market is already doing it. Although it is important to keep the information technology (IT) infrastructure as modern as possible, the large investment it entails can have significant implications on other crucial parts of the organization. As such, before investing totally in cloud migration, businesses should have a roadmap that shows how they will benefit from the move.

Michael Bathon, vice president of cloud services at Rimini Street, discusses with The Manila Times the pertinent issues businesses should focus on in developing a cloud-based roadmap tailor-fit to address an organization's unique and specific needs.

The Manila Times (TMT): The pandemic has pushed migration to the cloud across industries around the world. We're interested to know that while it's a very positive development, does it follow that most businesses must upgrade to best-of-breed systems as soon as possible?

Michael Bathon (MBa): I have to say "everybody else is doing it" isn't a sufficient reason for any business to make the jump entirely to the public cloud. At the same time, as your infrastructure requirements and costs continue to grow over time, you will have fewer resources that can be directed toward innovative projects.

If your competition is enhancing its security and disaster recovery posture while reducing digital infrastructure costs per unit, you risk setting yourself up for failure down the road. Overhauling your IT infrastructure is daunting to be sure; anytime you make a large investment in an area that touches just about every corner of the business, the overall implications can be high.

But that is the key point - not every business needs a complete overhaul. Cloud migration should come only after you build a business roadmap that shows how your organization will benefit from the move.

TMT: You're talking about a roadmap for cloud migration. That can only mean, first of all, priorities to ensure your journey to the cloud is secure and will bring the business to the desired destination. What would be your guideposts in developing such a roadmap?

MBa: One of the first and most obvious things cloud migration does for your business is free up your workforce. With fewer servers and/or data centers to run, your talent can focus on new and "cool" initiatives that help drive your core business forward. Instead of using resources to maintain systems, you enable teams to perform more valuable and rewarding work and help improve morale across the organization.

Making the move to a public cloud provider also allows businesses to secure talent. The reality is, if you're not looking at the cloud now, members of your IT team might leave because really, nobody wants to work for an organization that is solely based on antiquated systems, with no sight of modernization on the horizon.

Finally, a cloud roadmap allows your IT team to shift their focus back to your business. How much time does your IT team spend running hardware? And is it really driving new business? What if you could turn on its head so the team could focus on something new? It's certainly more attractive to both business leaders and those in the trenches to work on innovative projects rather than maintaining ageing systems.

TMT: We understand the "people first" concept in successfully running any enterprise. What else should a cloud migration roadmap entail, especially for those just starting out?

(MBa): If you look at the current IT processes, you have testing, support, and anything else you can think of and migrating them as-is to the cloud probably won't work the way you envision because it's a different paradigm.

I strongly encourage teams that are new to the cloud to do a readiness assessment to determine which processes are (or are not) "cloud ready." Once your core data, whether HR data, customer data, client supply chain data in the cloud, you can start consuming cloud-based tools that allow you to unlock the real value of your data.

An overlooked reality is very few, if any business, have migrated to 100 percent cloud-based infrastructures. On the flip side, it also rarely makes sense to invest in the most current enterprise resource planning on the market (and the associated support costs that come with it).

The cloud is inevitable, and what a cloud rollout looks like for your business will likely differ from that of other organizations, but at the end of the day, the key question is this: Would you rather spend time supporting your existing applications and/or implementing new backup software in order, or do you want to build in a level of flexibility that will help you grow and, ultimately, future-proof your business?

Rimini Street is the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and systems applications software products and a Salesforce partner.

Read the rest here:
Building a resilient cloud-based business - The Manila Times