Business leaders have heard of the many benefits of migrating to the cloud, but taking action is quite another matter. There’s far more to making such a dramatic change to your technology infrastructure than simply moving your data to online storage and signing up for a handful of cloud-based services. Cloud migrations are complex, goal-driven strategies consisting of many moving parts. They’re hardly something you can do in a day or even a few weeks. Rather, the journey to the cloud is a multifaceted, ongoing process that requires a team of IT experts.
Here’s why you need to work with a managed IT services provider (MSP) to ensure the success of your cloud migration:
Choose the right solutions with expert guidance
An MSP is more than just a vendor who sells cloud services and other products. A dependable MSP is a long-term technical partner with a vested interest in helping your business align its goals with the technology solutions necessary to realize them. That’s why you need guidance from technical specialists who understand more than just the technology, but also the specific needs and challenges of your industry. Healthcare providers, for example, need to think about things like HIPAA and HITECH compliance, which need to be factored in throughout the cloud migration process.
Augment the capabilities of in-house staff
Generally speaking, the larger and better-funded the business, the bigger its IT department. Smaller companies often struggle in this area because high-ranking IT staff demand six-figure salaries. While one of the biggest benefits of migrating to the cloud is reducing costs, that doesn’t mean you should be prepared to scrap your internal IT department altogether. A capable MSP augments your in-house IT department and coordinates with them to ensure a seamless transition to the cloud. If a potential MSP tries to convince you that you don’t need any in-house IT, then they probably don’t have your best interests at heart.
Stick to a low-risk migration roadmap
Migrating to the cloud is undeniably a major undertaking and, like any big change, it also has the potential to cause serious disruption to your operations or, worse still, leave your business open to a serious data breach or leak. That’s why you should never try to complete the process alone unless you have expert guidance and all the other resources you need in-house.
MSPs will help you mitigate the risk by taking a share of the responsibility to safeguard your data during the migration and keep any disruptions to a minimum. They’ll be legally bound by their service level agreements (SLAs) to keep downtime to a minimum and provide fast response times to your support requests. The most responsible providers will also take a steady and phased approach to cloud migration to reduce risk and prioritize tasks more efficiently.
Gain greater visibility into costs
Without a robust plan, migrating to the cloud can end up costing you a lot more than it needs to. If you’re trying to do everything alone, you never know when you might run into problems that require urgent attention. This only leads to the invoices piling up as fee-for-service support technicians keep coming in to resolve problems and get you back on track.
Partnering with a dependable MSP removes the element of surprise by providing a predictable cost structure from the beginning. This will give you full visibility into both short- and long-term costs, allowing you to budget more effectively and become more cost-efficient over time.
Complete Document Solutions (CDS) offers cloud-enabled printing systems, document solutions, and IT services to companies in Southern California. Call us today to find out how we can help your business grow.
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