Last week, we discussed the financial piece of the journey to the cloud. If you haven’t had a chance to read the blog post, that is a great place to start. As mentioned last week, moving to the cloud can be a quicker process than updating your hardware, but it is a still a journey and doesn’t usually happen overnight.
This week, we are going to discuss a second piece of the cloud journey, the people aspect.
People: The Challenge
While the financial piece is a big part of the journey, the people can sometimes pose the biggest challenge. People are prone to resisting change because you are taking them out of their comfortable environment and introducing them to something brand new. By moving to the cloud, you are bringing in new systems, processes, and sometimes even new leadership. At the end of the day, people are going to play a large role in whether you will ultimately be successful in your move to the cloud.
People: The Solution
Luckily, there are some key strategies to help overcome some of the common challenges to help increase buy-in and create a smoother transition process.
Buy-In
One of the best ways to get buy-in company-wide is to start at the top. The executive leadership team can have a major impact on employee engagement and adoption. Additionally, if you can find one or two people who will sponsor the project and help advocate for it, you’ll be in a much better position.
One of the biggest keys is to make sure your leadership team understands the business need and objectives for the move to the cloud. In turn, if they can then communicate that to everyone, it makes it a lot easier for people to support it. When people understand the reason behind the change, they are typically more open to supporting it.
As a result, generating excitement, sharing the value, and getting others to support it, will help to create a positive culture and encourage others to adopt the idea.
Choose Solutions Wisely
When the time comes to select how you plan to move to the cloud, make sure you keep in mind the current applications that are used, how easy it is to use, and how well it integrates into what you have now. By making it easy to use and efficient, it’ll make it easier for more people to quickly adopt the solution. Also, make sure you communicate any benefits that come from the change. This can help increase adoption.
Training and Resources
Ideally, the move will make life easier for everyone, but the process to get there can be challenging if there is a large learning curve. By providing training and resources for everyone, you’ll cut down on people who resist using it because they aren’t familiar and don’t want to learn.
To ensure users receive the right training and support, it is encouraged to designate “cloud champions” who can answer questions and offer support on the ground, so people don’t feel like they are left to figure it out on their own.
User buy-in and adoption can be a challenging hurdle, but if you plan ahead, communicate, and focus on education and user support, you will be able to execute a more successful move to the cloud.
MyCloudIT
While there are several tools out there to help move to the cloud, MyCloudIT can provide an easy solution to move some or all of your infrastructure to the Microsoft Azure cloud. You can easily deploy remote desktops or remote apps with the applications your company needs. You are able to simplify the delivery of your IT infrastructure, create a better user experience, and use IT automation to save time and money.
A great example is how US Medical IT was able to use MyCloudIT to help EVEXIAS Medical move their applications to Microsoft Azure so they can use Windows and Macs at any of their locations.
Check out Part 3 of Moving to the Cloud is a Journey, Not a One-Time Event. We discuss how your cloud options impact the journey.
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Tags: Move to the Cloud
