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Choosing the right migration method for cloud transformation
Published: October 10, 2023
Rebekah Carter
Demand for cloud technologies has accelerated in recent years. In 2020 alone, approximately 61% of businesses migrated various workloads and processes into the cloud. As of 2023, it’s estimated that around 94% of enterprises use cloud services.
The flexible, scalable, and agile nature of the cloud presents a number of potential benefits to evolving organizations, from greater business continuity to opportunities for innovation. In the communications landscape, cloud solutions ensure businesses can keep teams aligned, enhance productivity, and even better-serve their customers.
Unfortunately, while the benefits of cloud migration are significant, there are many challenges involved in the transition to a new technology stack. Embracing the right migration strategy is key to ensuring companies can unlock the full potential of their cloud environment.
Although, during the pandemic, many companies attempted to accelerate their cloud migration, simply to preserve crucial communications, a successful path to the cloud isn’t a sprint. A step-by-step strategy is necessary to ensure businesses don’t encounter issues with technology integration, security and compliance, employee adoption, and unnecessary complexity.
The “Crawl-Walk-Run-Fly” approach introduced by leading technology vendor, CallTower, presents an effective strategy for digital transformation. It empowers companies to select and implement the right technologies, ensure alignment in their tech stack, and pave the way for transformation.
In life, we crawl before we can walk. In a cloud communications migration, companies need to ensure they understand their technology needs before they can begin transitioning into the cloud. During the Crawl stage, businesses assess their current voice solution, and determine a plan for transitioning from analog lines into SIP telecommunications.
Effective strategizing starts with gathering as much detailed information as possible about the specific hardware configurations of the current systems, as well as software and code-level dependencies. During this stage, companies can also assess any special considerations or customizations that might be necessary for the future ecosystem. For instance, brands might want to use Microsoft Teams alongside a variety of add-ons for CRMs, ERPs, and other tools.
The “Walk” stage is when businesses can begin to take the first steps towards their cloud future. It involves ensuring your ideal voice solution can be integrated into your ideal platform in a way that’s tailored to your specific company goals.
Leading communications and technology vendors can help brands to develop strategies on a location-by-location, or department-by-department basis, adhering to a range of different requirements. Larger organizations in particular could benefit from a department-by-department approach, as communication workflows can vary from one ecosystem to another.
Some vendors can also offer subsidiary-by-subsidiary integration, accounting for the variance in communication preferences between business units. They may also offer a user-by-user solution for smaller businesses, where each team member has specific challenges to address.
During the run stage of a cloud migration, the journey to success begins to pick up speed. Companies can begin to reduce their existing voice services, and complete the journey towards their desired UCaaS environment, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Cisco Webex.
While it might be tempting to focus on embracing all of the functionality a new platform can offer, it’s important for businesses to take a meticulous approach to disconnecting hardware and service subscriptions. Business leaders should develop a comprehensive plan that outlines the key tasks, resources, and timelines involved in the transition.
This plan needs to feature a comprehensive overview of the migration process, which identifies any potential risks and challenges along the way. It also needs to earn the buy-in from all stakeholders and team members in the business. Providing staff with the right training, support, and guidance will help to accelerate adoption of new technologies, and minimize potential disruptions.
A key part of the Run process involves accessing the support of a dedicated team of experts during the migration process. This team can work alongside vendors and stakeholders to quickly mitigate issues that might damage business processes or productivity.
Finally, once the cloud transition is complete, companies can begin to think about the opportunities they have to scale, innovate, and evolve in a new agile landscape. However, there are still several factors to carefully consider. For instance, businesses need to ensure their new technologies are performing according to crucial expectations.
Emergency notification systems need to be able to consistently handle large volumes of users reliably, E911 solutions must be able to adapt to changes in the environment as they occur. This requires businesses to ensure their system is adaptive, flexible, and responsive.
Working with the right vendor to move your ecosystem into a highly scalable environment which supports internal and external communications, as well as complementary tools will make the Fly stage smoother. Additionally, it’s important for businesses to consider any additional tools they may need for continued success, such as compliance call recording.
Call recording tools will need to be configured to ensure they can adhere to the latest compliance and security regulations. Businesses will also need to think about how they can preserve business continuity in the cloud landscape, using tools like one-click failover in the event of an outage.
Other communication components, such as credit card machines, door buzzers, and pagers may also need to be included in the system, alongside SMS/MMS communication methods and similar tools.
Though today’s business leaders are under increasing pressure to migrate to the cloud as quickly as possible, it’s important not to rush such a crucial process. A crawl-walk-run-fly approach to cloud migration ensures businesses can take an efficient, step-by-step journey through the transition.
With this strategy, organizations can ensure they’re implementing the right tools for their business, paving the way for rapid adoption, and minimizing costly downtime and expensive issues. What’s more, they’ll ensure they can implement a flexible and scalable solution that can adapt to the ever-changing requirements of the communication landscape.
For more information on this topic, visit CallTower.
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