Author: Allan Meace

While hybrid cloud is an effective approach for resolving business problems, not all organizations that implement it are successful.

I’ve found that one of the main reasons why people fail to adopt a hybrid cloud-supported environment is that they haven’t taken the time to plan for it. Keep in mind that hybrid cloud is ultimately driven and controlled by people, not technology.

Business and technology leaders who rush into cloud adoption often don’t take the necessary steps to understand their existing work environment. As a result, they can’t accurately predict their ongoing financial, security, and operational needs.

According to Gartner’s senior director analyst, John McArthur, “IT leaders need to formulate a cohesive cloud strategy that is expansive and forward-looking to fully reap the business value of cloud.”

Launch and sustain your cloud-supported work environment confidently by examining the best path forward below to adopt hybrid cloud successfully.

Use Data To Drive Your Cloud Adoption Strategy

There is no one-size-fits-all cloud adoption approach. Instead, I have seen firsthand that the strongest adoption strategies tend to be those that are supported by data insights based on an organization’s work environment.

“People need to take the time to draw information about their existing business processes and needs,” states Louis Gervais, COO at FlexITy. “That way, they can gain clarity on how they should navigate their long-term business drivers with hybrid cloud.”

Without using your data, your organization could take on a band-aid-style cloud adoption strategy, where only short-term challenges are taken into account. Not your ongoing, critical organizational issues.

It’s crucial for business and IT leaders to work together to assess their environment before they take any other steps to implement hybrid cloud. Once those essential data insights have been extracted, organizations will have a better idea of where they want to be several years down the road — and what business objectives they’ll need to target for a smooth transition.

Choose a Partner That Understands Your Desired Business Outcomes

Since hybrid cloud is driven by people, the success of an adoption strategy depends largely on the people who create, execute and manage it.

Hybrid cloud can be new and intimidating for organizations, though, which can overwhelm and stall IT teams and result in a rushed or incomplete cloud adoption strategy. However, you don’t have to face your cloud adoption strategy alone.

Organizations can select a partner that is highly experienced with hybrid cloud management to guide them through their adoption strategy and help fill any skill gaps.

Just be sure to choose a partner that has working knowledge about your unique business issues and can go beyond basic cloud-related sales information.

After all, your hybrid cloud adoption strategy should be centered around your business objectives.

“Business and technology leaders who want to have a successful cloud adoption approach must first identify the proper business processes that need to change,” says Gervais. “These processes should be identified, restrategized, and implemented by people who have the right skillsets.”

No matter what business outcomes you hope to improve through hybrid cloud, getting a helping hand from skilled, experienced professionals will ensure your adoption strategy aligns with your organization’s needs and goals.

How FlexITy Can Help

From my experience working with FlexITy customers, I’ve noticed that most organizations have the instinct to base their cloud migrations on advances in technology. Yet, IT leaders should actually be creating their cloud adoption strategies around their company’s consumption needs.

FlexITy offers customers standardized approaches for analyzing their work environments and consumption behaviors effectively. By embracing these approaches, business and IT leaders can fully understand what their next steps should be to adopt hybrid cloud successfully.

In addition, the majority of our team is made up of engineers who are highly experienced with building cloud-based approaches and navigating related challenges. This allows us to fully understand our customer’s business drivers and help frame their cloud adoption strategies around extraordinary end-user experiences.

“At FlexITy, we assess your business problems first to see what the root of the issues are and work with you to understand what the best possible solution is,” explains FlexITy Systems Ltd. Architect John Lilek.

At the end of the day, we help customers analyze their environments, design custom solutions, implement cloud-based strategies, and manage their hybrid cloud approaches.

FlexITy also makes the most of an innovation lab, where we test out all of our solutions and strategies before introducing them to customers.

Together, we can ensure that your company is on track to resolve short-term and long-term business problems before, during, and after adopting hybrid cloud.

Hear from our experts by registering for our webinar, “Common Misconceptions Canadian Companies Have About Hybrid Cloud”.