Facts Over Fears: Why the Time is Now to Move to the Cloud

Someone once wrote, “The key to change is to let go of fear.” Fear, of course, is a very common human emotion and we all know how some people are simply reluctant to change. However, there are some fears and some changes that we must face and accept or else face the consequences.

While that may sound overly dramatic in the context of moving to the cloud, I am here to tell you that it may very well be the opposite: that you cannot overstate the need for companies to move to the cloud if they want to be around in three, five or even 10 years from now. It’s that profound.

We live in a data-driven world now which means we’re never far from a statistic or finding on any given topic – and cloud adoption is no different. For example, 90% of all businesses are on the cloud. Breaking it down, there are the 93% of enterprises who have a multi-cloud strategy, with another 87% having a hybrid cloud strategy – this according to the 2020 State of the Cloud Report, which also revealed the top two cloud initiatives for organizations this year are first, optimizing their existing use of the cloud and second, migrating more workload to the cloud.

However, that still leaves many organizations who are not on the cloud (at least not fully) and are still far too reliant on antiquated, archaic systems. These legacy systems can cause enormous issues. Case in point: the residents of Florida, Connecticut and New York.

When the pandemic hit, these states, like all other states –  were overwhelmed with an incredible uptick in unemployment claims. However, as the New York Times aptly described it, “the state’s archaic systems were woefully unprepared for the deluge of claims.” In fact, state officials, in seeking bids to upgrade systems, wrote that the programs were “written in the 1970s and 1980s and remain constrained by the technology of that era.”

And therein lies one of the major challenges, or in this case the fear that many organizations must overcome.

There are many people who still have fears when it comes to moving to the cloud. I understand and I hear them all the time. Below are the fears I hear most often followed directly by the facts which will serve to allay each fear.

Fear: Leaving their legacy solutions. Know the old expression, “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it”? While I believe in this adage for sure, the problem is knowing when something is in fact broken to then in turn address the need to fix it. Take the aforementioned scenarios that played out in New York and other states when the pandemic hit. Prior to that, their unemployment technology solutions worked OK, at least as far as officials knew.

Fact: The cost of maintaining legacy solutions can be massive. Moving to the cloud can dramatically reduce expenses, especially when it comes to people, hardware, maintenance, and IT. Moving to the cloud also gives you speed, agility and the ability to outpace your competition. Moreover, by moving to the cloud, you can immediately employ innovation in real time, something that is literally impossible to do with legacy, on-premise applications. As Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said during a live Zoom event held in July, those enterprises (who are loyal to legacy solutions) are missing a huge opportunity to tap into cloud-based innovations, especially autonomous technology.

Fear: The cloud is just not secure. This is apparently still very much a fear, a rightly-founded one at that. According to the third-annual Oracle and KPMG Cloud Threat Report 2020, three-quarters of companies have experienced data loss from a cloud service more than once.

Fact: I cannot overstate the importance of protecting your most valuable data in the cloud and on-premises with a solution that offers a security-first approach. One that provides automated security to reduce complexity and prevent human error and keeps your business protected using always-on encryption and continuous monitoring of user behavior with an Autonomous Database.

Fear: There would be far too many changes to (and in) the organization. Change is not always easy for people to accept. And when it comes to moving to the cloud, there is a perception that there will be a lot of change and disruptions – which, in some people’s eyes, correlate to the move is just not worth it; not worth the disruption.

Fact: Chief among those who fear too many organizational changes are CHROs. Those in Human Resources, naturally, are worried that all the change and disruption would impact the overall business. The plain truth is people’s entire outlooks change when systems become easy to use – and that’s what moving to the cloud does; it simply makes things easier. Companies who employ a cloud solution can expect a unified experience for its employees, customers and partners. It can expect a world class system with innovation happening every 90 days, not two or three years as part of an “upgrade” to an on-premise, legacy system. For organizations to stay ahead, they have to be agile, innovative and operate at the speed of Cloud.

So where do you and your organization stand in all of this? Are you saddled with these fears of moving to the cloud? Do you have doubts about the facts? Or maybe you’re already partly in the cloud but not happy with your current solution i.e. Workday or SAP?

Whatever state you’re in, I’d love to hear from you. Please reach out today!

Speaking of facts, here’s one that is indisputable: In the Q2 2020 Forrester Wave™ for Cloud Human Capital Management Suites Report, Oracle scored highest in its current offering category and achieved the highest possible score in customer experience criterion.