What are some key considerations for businesses thinking about moving to the cloud?

A lot of businesses have already adopted some cloud services, typically starting with email and sales management platforms. As these are effectively managed services with relatively little setup or change required from a daily use point of view, the changes to these cloud services tend to go smoothly. But it is often the case that when businesses start to move their own applications or business services to the cloud, issues arise. When businesses “lift and shift” their existing ways of working from an on-premise solution to a public cloud, they need to think about how it might impact business operations and the daily working lives of their staff. It is unlikely that their existing applications and services will be ready for the cloud, so proper forward planning is required to minimise any transition issues. Alongside this, businesses need to consider whether the public cloud or a private cloud is the best option for them. Most businesses will be able to use a public cloud, but certain industries can only use private clouds. A good example of this is the legal industry, where sensitive customer data has to be stored in a specific way. In reality, most businesses will end up utilising a hybrid model of private and public cloud alongside some on-premise network.