Choosing cloud: 5 tips for building a strong business case
Choosing cloud: 5 tips for building a strong business case
ITcheckers
Moving your business—or part of it—to the cloud is not a tactical decision but a strategic one. It's a step you shouldn't take lightly. With these five tips, you'll increase your chances of navigating this challenge successfully.
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“From my role, I meet almost daily with IT managers, as well as CFOs and other strategic decision-makers,” says Veerle Van Keyenberg, Head of CIO Advisory at Inetum Consulting. “From these frequent and regular interactions with clients—both current and prospective—I’ve learned a great deal about the main stumbling blocks when preparing a business case for the cloud. Over time, five key focus points kept emerging.”
Tip 1: Keep your objective in mind
Moving to the cloud can never be a goal in itself. At best, it’s a means to achieve another goal, typically a business objective. This might be a generic aim, such as enhancing your organization’s agility. Or perhaps you're aiming to alleviate the workload for your (IT) staff, increase flexibility, or improve security. For others, the cloud is a way to deploy innovative technology that’s too complex or costly to host on-premises.
The reasons for moving to the cloud are many, but the question is: what’s the right reason for you? Once you’ve identified that, the next step is to translate this often generic business objective into something as concrete and explicit as possible. Ideally, you should frame your cloud objective in terms of measurable or quantifiable results you aim to achieve. If you can clarify this goal from the outset, it will serve as a guiding compass throughout your cloud journey, helping you make informed decisions along the way.
Tip 2: Account for challenges in your cloud strategy
No cloud journey is without its challenges. Four ‘classic’ issues repeatedly surface: ensuring data sovereignty and security, avoiding the dreaded ‘vendor lock-in,’ bridging or reducing knowledge gaps, and keeping costs under control. Incorporate these four challenges into your business case design and organizational strategy. For instance, schedule regular reviews and make adjustments as necessary.
Tip 3: Not everything is as it seems
Innovative projects—like cloud migrations—can sometimes let emotions override rational decision-making. Both expectations and fears are often disproportionately high. However, nothing is ever quite as it seems. That’s why it’s essential to allocate resources in your cloud business plan for testing, setting up proofs of concept (POCs), and calculating costs. By making things more tangible, you can avoid getting lost in unfounded assumptions, irrational fears, or prejudices that might derail your project.
Tip 4: Engage sufficient ambassadors
Find cheerleaders or ambassadors for the cloud within your organization. Since the cloud is a means to achieve business goals, you should seek these ambassadors among your business colleagues. Identify their concerns, explore which business projects need support, and determine how the cloud can help. This approach ensures that the cloud solutions you propose automatically align with your organization’s priorities. This alignment increases stakeholder engagement and guarantees more successful cloud adoption, driving the necessary change forward.
Tip 5: Consider alternatives in your financial planning
Finally, do your financial homework. While this seems obvious, the exercise isn’t always as thorough as it should be. Beyond the usual costs for cloud licenses, migration, security, and ongoing support, budget for training your employees. More broadly, allocate resources for change management to ensure the success of the transformation process. Don’t overlook the importance of governance—monthly cost reviews, for example, can help you stay on track and adjust when needed.
Keep in mind that you don’t always need the most expensive solution. There are often less costly alternatives. For instance, instead of retraining your VMware engineers entirely for the cloud, you could opt for the Azure VMware Solution (AVS). This allows them to continue working with the same technology they’re familiar with, but in the cloud instead of a local data center—saving on training costs.
Another example: if a new technology is too complex to manage in-house, you could outsource that work, fully or partially, to Inetum. In short, to build a successful business case, it’s crucial not only to identify potential barriers but also to look for creative ways to address and overcome them.
What does your cloud journey look like?
Every journey to the cloud is unique. The reason is simple: every organization has its own motivation and unique characteristics. Some organizations are larger or more complex than others, which can impact the duration and complexity of their cloud journey.
That doesn’t mean there can’t—or shouldn’t—be a clear roadmap to the cloud. Quite the opposite: such a roadmap with defined steps or milestones already exists. For simplicity and clarity, we like to visualize it as a metro map.
What’s most important is knowing where you want to go, the quickest route to get there, and where best to start your journey. Our experts are here to help. For more information, email info.belgium@inetum.com.