Don’t leave your people behind when moving to public cloud

Core business systems are swiftly migrating to public cloud, with established benefits. Enterprises adopting SAP public cloud enjoy scalable resources and are able to adjust as required to prevent infrastructure over-provisioning.

Other benefits include cost efficiency, flexibility, agility, enhanced security, and regulatory compliance. Additionally, the global reach minimises latency and boosts performance by bringing business applications closer to customers.

While transition to the cloud is imperative, organisations must remember that it’s the people who hold the keys to success. Deloitte’s latest whitepaper says just this – when it comes to shifting to the cloud - the importance of leadership and executive sponsorship, as well as digital adoption platforms like WalkMe are critical.

“Never before have people been so pivotal to an organisation’s ability to make the shift to the cloud” Adam Quigley, Director at Deloitte said.

Today, speed is paramount in cloud transformation. Transitioning to the cloud now takes mere weeks, enabling rapid adoption of essential tools and processes across the organisation. However, this swift timeframe also poses challenges.

That’s because in the past large multi deployment “on premise” projects could take many years to implement. In the cloud era, we’re looking at maybe three to four months.

With that in mind, it might be tempting to go “quick! get in! there’s no time to explain!” and skip over the importance of building the capability of your people, or in communicating the vision and goals of the move to cloud.

"The key to getting people ready for cloud is in the early upskilling of your people. By enabling your people with the right skills and knowledge, you pave the way for a successful implementation that unlocks the full potential of public cloud and your organisation’s growth” Adam Quigley, Director at Deloitte said.

Deloitte’s proprietary ChangeX enterprise change management platform, with pre-configured change impacts for SAP S/4HANA helps accelerate you through the transformation. With built-in communications offering tailored, modern interactive campaigns and engagement analytics it’s easier to accelerate your people’s cloud migration journey.

Maintaining focus on the fundamentals is crucial. Ensuring staff grasp the "cloud mindset" is essential. Additionally, leaders capable of making swift decisions are indispensable, especially with cloud as the need to “fit to standard” out the box business processes can drive significant change into the organisation.

Often your people need to learn to work with cloud based systems that require a much greater degree of discipline compared to what they’re used to. How processes are performed, in what order, and the quality of data becomes paramount. Behaviours will need to change and training is critical with in-application support in case your people get stuck.

“Gone are the days when “training” happens just before (or after) testing and before go-live. The learning starts before the program!” Adam Quigley, Director at Deloitte, said.

Leaders need to set out their vision and expectations for the transition early, role-modelling and helping change organisation culture in the process. It’s critical to explain what it will mean to people along the way and to get buy-in at each step of the journey to ensure your journey to the cloud delivers the expected benefits.

Existing SAP ECC customers face more urgency in addressing their legacy technology as they must transition to SAP S/4HANA before 2027, the extended deadline marking the end of support and the technology's end-of-life.

Cloud migration might seem tough, but it's time to dive in. Don't delay, rally your team and make it happen!

You can read Deloitte’s latest whitepaper here.

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Cloud Covered is an editorial report exploring the ever-evolving cloud landscape and mix of benefits, challenges, trends and key market movements that CIOs should consider when considering the adoption of cloud services.