Many companies are moving to cloud-based systems because it’s cost-effective and allows employees to access tools from anywhere.

When it comes to migrating to the cloud, there are two potential models of migrations: full-cloud migration or hybrid-cloud migration.

A full-cloud migration is when you move all your organization’s databases and systems to the cloud, and a hybrid migration is when you move only some. Depending on your business objectives and goals, you may decide that the best fit for your strategy is to only move a certain set of services to the cloud.

Moving your systems to a cloud-based infrastructure has many advantages; however, there will be a transition period for employees. Whenever your team goes through a change, you want it to be seamless. The move to cloud-based data storage should cause little disruption.

Preparing and communicating with employees is essential to keep the process moving.

What changes for your team?

During the migration, your team will likely use the same equipment and interfaces. They potentially won’t even notice a difference beyond a temporary interruption while services are moved.

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

In most cases, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. However, all changes made should follow the correct protocol, to ensure that all users are able to adopt the solution with ease.

Some important advantages to highlight with your employees include:

• They will have access to data and systems from the same devices they use today
• The functionality of their day-to-day work stays the same
• Cloud-based storage gives the peace of mind that if their computer is inaccessible or their local files are deleted, they can find their data easily

Another benefit is scalability. Cloud-based systems allow your business to easily scale up or down when required. If a business needs change, as they did with stay-at-home orders, you can increase your existing resources to accommodate the current needs. The ability to pivot quickly is essential in today’s environment

One disadvantage of migrating to the cloud is the lack of in-house control over vital systems and databases. You are trusting another party to take care of your data. You are trusting that the cloud provider will keep their data centers compliant and secured both physically and online.

If this is one of your concerns, working with a managed services provider can help with the planning of this project. The managed services provider can help assess your requirements and current systems, to help navigate the best path for your migration.

How do you communicate the changes to your team?

When migrating to a cloud solution, you should be transparent with your teams about the changes they can expect. You might consider explaining the reason behind the change as well.

You want to create as little disruption as possible, especially since your employees have experienced so much disruption with the spread of COVID-19.

When communicating the change, be clear that this is a seamless process and that the required resources will be on hand to assist during this change.

You want to make sure you have a solid project plan in place and identify any team members that might need training due to the migration. The plan should include clearly identified goals, schedules, and communication plans. It is helpful to include information on troubleshooting should any challenges arise.

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With concise and transparent communication, your team should be at ease with the transition plan.

How do you work with your IT department on migration?

It’s important that your IT department is familiar and ready to work in a cloud environment. Here are a few areas you’ll want to make sure they have knowledge in:

• Data management – With the cloud, data storage is less of an issue. Instead, your team should be ready to focus on data access and management
• Cybersecurity – Cloud-based vendors own a lot of the responsibility for the security of your data, but you’ll still need these skills as data is conceivably more at risk in the cloud
• Task automation – Your employees should be trained in ways to automate the system to help manage the data

With cloud-based storage, you can save money, be more agile and efficient, lower operational costs, and improve collaboration between departments.

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