Stage 1—Cloud Strategy and Launch Phase

Flexibility, scalability, a shorter time-to-market for service delivery, and transparent cost management are among some of the expected benefits a company hopes to derive from using the public cloud. It is very important to establish a well-thought-out and coordinated cloud strategy that presents a clear roadmap and, above all, clearly defines the value levers. The cloud strategy should clarify why this path is being taken at all. The journey to the public cloud brings many hurdles that you should be aware of in advance. The cloud strategy serves to highlight the value of the cloud for your company. This will support you in overcoming the hurdles on the way to the cloud. One of the first steps on the journey to the public cloud is to set up a Cloud Center of Excellence, which will centrally manage the transformation journey. In addition, the CCoE coordinates the establishment of a secure cloud foundation and the execution of an assessment of your IT landscape. This is often followed by a so-called lift-and-shift migration. As part of this migration, the existing IT infrastructure is fully or partially migrated from the company’s own on-premise data center to the public cloud. Above all, it is important to consider that this is not just a technical transformation, but that the transformation into the public cloud primarily involves a mindset change in IT (and also in the entire organization) on the way to a product-oriented organization. All stakeholders should be involved from the beginning. It’s not just an IT story to improve the bottom line, rather that cloud adoption is crucial for the entire business in your company, as to potentially increase your top line profit.