Cloud migration is at the front and centre of digital transformation. Gartner cited that by 2025, more than 80% of public cloud managed and professional services deals will require some form of cloud capabilities from their provider, up from 50% in 2020.
Organizations are embracing cloud in efforts to drive enterprise-wide innovation, deliver new and agile ways of working and deliver operational enhancements. But change is never easy and value is often evaded…
We know that over 90% of companies are now utilising the cloud in some capacity, but studies show that up to 74% of cloud migration projects fail – where “failure” is defined as the organization moving business applications back out of the cloud. So, how do we ensure the success of cloud migration?
Measuring success in your cloud migration
Ensuring that your cloud migration is successful is dependent on multiple factors, such as the level of C-Suite buy-in, aligned leaders, the right business capabilities, and adequate infosec provisions. All factors are crucial to the success of cloud migration.
However, during the weeks running up to go-live and beyond, how does an organization ensure the organisation is on their ‘journey to cloud’ and business users are truly embracing (or at least, accepting…) the new applications and ways of working? How can we accurately tell whether we are hitting the value case?
The path to insight is in the form of adoption metrics… Being able to accurately measure against adoption targets allows us to effectively answer the questions of what is working, and what is not – allowing us to respond to adversity and focus our efforts on the levers of adoption that will make the difference. What gets measured gets done…
Once the organisation has a view of the ROI being targeted, leaders should then define specific adoption KPIs. The programme will be targeting real business value in the form of cost-reduction, revenue-creation, increased sustainability, improved customer or employee experience or something else. It is important that this business value is the basis for how the success of the programme is measured… All adoption metrics should be tied to this.
An organisation can consider two types of metrics: General Adoption and Business Adoption.
General Adoption indicators include metrics such as logins, filtered by team or region. They give you a good idea of usage, but are not so good at measuring real value e.g. is our programme genuinely improving performance or are people just logging in to a new platform?
Business Adoption focuses on customized business performance related metrics that are customer-centric and focus on the value the business value the programme is targeting. Examples could include the number of quotes issued, number of leads opened / closed number of collaborated files or an increase in sales per rep.
There is no hard and fast, right or wrong. Every organisation and every programme is different. However, by focusing on the value the programme is aiming to deliver and aligning metrics to that, there will be clear indicators whether things are on track.
These two measurement areas help senior leaders across the business understand what is going well and what needs improvement. But like anything, strong data is only the beginning. Of course, data is the anchor point, but the real challenge lies in taking the story within the data, and turning into action.
Conclusion
Cloud programmes move quickly. Defining adoption metrics helps to pinpoint areas that are thriving versus areas that need support. When you combine adoption metrics with transformational leadership activism you create a winning combo. Because a leader who can see where they’re going (or, where they’re not!) always has a greater chance of getting to the finish line.
