Why are we moving to the cloud?

"Why are we moving to the cloud?" This is a common question for both businesses and technical stakeholders. If the answer is, "Our board (or CIO or C-level executives) told us to move to the cloud," it might be more difficult for those businesses to achieve their expected outcomes.

This article discusses some of the motivations behind cloud migration that can help produce more successful business outcomes. Understanding these motivations will help you create a conversation about the available options and, ultimately, create positive business outcomes.

Motivations

Various motivations can drive business transformations that are supported by cloud adoption. Several motivations likely apply at the same time. The goal of the list in the following table is to help generate ideas about which motivations are relevant. From there, you can evaluate and assess the potential impacts of the applicable motivations. Your cloud adoption team should meet with the stakeholders, executives, and business leaders and discuss which motivations can help your business's cloud adoption.

Critical business events	Migration	Innovation
Datacenter exit Merger, acquisition, or divestiture Reduction in capital expenses End of support for mission-critical technologies Response to regulatory compliance changes New data sovereignty requirements Reduction of disruptions and improvement of IT stability Report and manage the environmental impact of your business	Cost savings Reduction in vendor or technical complexity Optimization of internal operations Increase in business agility Preparation for new technical capabilities Scaling to meet market demands Scaling to meet geographic demands Integration of a complex IT portfolio	Preparation for new technical capabilities Building new technical capabilities Scaling to meet market demands Scaling to meet geographic demands Improved customer experiences and engagements Transformation of products or services Market disruption with new products or services Democratization and/or self-service environments

Classify your motivations

Your motivations for cloud adoption will likely fall into multiple categories. As you're building the list of motivations, trends will likely emerge. Motivations tend to be associated more with one classification than with others. Use the predominant classification to help guide the development of your cloud adoption strategy.

When responding to critical business events is the highest priority, it's important to get started with migration early, often in parallel with strategy and planning efforts. Taking this approach requires a growth mindset and a willingness to improve processes based on lessons learned iteratively.

When migration is the highest priority, strategy and planning will play a vital role early in the process. We recommend that you implement the first workload in parallel with planning efforts to help the team understand and anticipate any learning curves associated with cloud adoption.

When innovation is the highest priority, strategy and planning require more investments early in the process. This ensures balance in the portfolio and wise alignment of the investments made during cloud adoption. For more information and guidance, see Understand the innovation journey.

To ensure better decision-making, all participants in the migration process should have a clear awareness of their motivations. The following section outlines how customers can guide and affect decisions through consistent and strategic methodologies.

Motivation-driven strategies and business outcomes

This section highlights the migration and innovation motivations and their corresponding strategies.

Migration

The migration motivations listed near the top of the motivations table are the most common reasons for adopting the cloud but not necessarily the most significant. These outcomes are crucial to achieve, but they're most effectively used to transition to other, more useful worldviews. This essential first step to cloud adoption is often called a cloud migration. The Migrate methodology of the Cloud Adoption Framework outlines the strategy for executing a cloud migration.

Some motivations align well with a migration strategy. Motivations at the top of this list can have less business impact than the ones towards the bottom. Strategies with migration driving motivations have helped organizations to successfully create business outcomes that:

• Move towards their Sustainability goals
• Increase cost savings. Read the customer story.
• Reduce vendor or technical complexity.
• Optimize internal operations.
• Increase business agility. Read the customer story.
• Prepare for new technical capabilities.
• Scale to market demand.
• Scale to geographic demand. Read the customer story.

Innovation

Data is the new commodity, and modern applications are the supply chain driving that data into various experiences. In today's business market, it's hard to find a transformative product or service that isn't built on top of data, insights, and customer experiences. The Innovate methodology of the Cloud Adoption Framework includes motivations aligned to a technology strategy that appear lower in the Innovation column of the motivation list above.

The motivations below help IT organizations to focus more on innovation than a migration strategy. Strategies with innovation driving motivations have helped organizations to successfully create business outcomes that:

• Move towards their Sustainability goals
• Increase business agility.
• Prepare for new technical capabilities.
• Build new technical capabilities.
• Scale to market demand.
• Scale to geographic demand.
• Improve customer experience and engagement. Read the customer story.
• Transform products or services.

Next steps

Understanding your projected business outcomes, will help facilitate conversations that you'll need to have. These conversations will prove invaluable in documenting your motivations and supporting metrics, in alignment with your business strategy. Next, read an overview of business outcomes that are commonly associated with a move to the cloud.

Overview of business outcomes