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Changing your entire communications infrastructure might seem like a daunting, time-consuming challenge. However, as cloud communications have become essential to supporting workforces, especially in light of blended (in-office, hybrid, and remote) environments, it's a necessary challenge to face.
To ensure a meaningful cloud computing journey, it is crucial to prioritize a strategy driven by business outcomes in addition to cloud adoption. You’ll need to have a strong understanding of your organizational needs and prepare a plan of action to include picking a provider, mapping out the installation design, programming, and testing, and that’s all before your go-live! Plus, you’ll need to ensure end-users have proper training; otherwise, your new investment might not pay off in the long run.
Fortunately, there are ways to make the process fast and painless. Here are five of the critical steps you can take to pave the road and make your migration easier:
1. Discovery Consult & Provider Recommendations
Figuring out your migration as you go can be a recipe for disaster. Our Enterprise Consultants and Solution Architect team will conduct a thorough discovery process that includes:
Auditing your existing architecture to decide which systems and applications will be utilized and which will need to be replaced (as well as which ones you just don't need)
Identifying your business' specific needs for communications (such as messaging, contact center functionality, integrations, features, and so on)
Understanding what resources your team will need to efficiently migrate your communications
There are a lot of vendors out there; how do you know which one is right for you? We’ll help by preparing a Vendor Analysis & Executive Summary to help you evaluate each vendor's strengths, weaknesses, and prices, along with analyst insights, including Gartner Magic Quadrant leading partners. Then, we set up custom vendor demos to show you only the features and benefits that matter to you so you don't waste time sitting through long, tedious presentations that have no bearing on your business.
Not every solution is right for everyone, and we can help identify the best options.
2. Map Your Install, Design, & Programming
Designs and programs your new system
Appoints a migration architect to perform your migration in-house or oversee the implementation if it's conducted by the vendors
Creates a training plan so user adoption of your new solution is seamless
Recommend post-implementation support options where needed
You'll soon see that it isn't as daunting as it once appeared.
3. Test & Train
Once you've chosen the right solution, our team will help to test it out. That way, you can see it in action for yourself, and we can make adjustments based on test results before the go-live day.
Then we move on to developing a customized training plan, a crucial step in protecting your investment. From employee engagement and retention to better customer outcomes, proper end-user training on your new solution is essential. This will help ensure that everyone is ready to start using the system as soon as the migration is complete, so you save time troubleshooting down the line.
4. Go-Live
Finally, it's time for the migration itself, and there are important decisions to make when it comes to your move:
Who is the right partner to lead the implementation?
While vendors perform implementations, a partner can typically get you to the goalpost quicker than a vendor, where you'll have to get in line in a standard waiting queue. You could wait months, depending on the vendor's lead time. We are one of a very short list of partners certified to perform implementations on your behalf, working in conjunction with our specialized vendor contacts so we can accommodate your timeline, not theirs. And in cases where we can't perform the migration ourselves, we'll still be there to plan, schedule, and oversee your migration, ensuring everything goes smoothly within the allotted budget and time frame.
Should you move all at once or in stages?
You may feel tempted to move your entire organization to the cloud at once, but migration is a massive undertaking, and some companies could be better off moving in stages. If you have thousands of employees or multiple locations migrating to the new platform, for instance. That said, every organization’s needs are different, and what works for one may not be a good fit for you.
We’ve seen successful migrations happen both ways. One of our customers has hundreds of medical offices nationwide. They've chosen to migrate one location at a time over the next several years. Another customer, a professional sports team, required the implementation of their new solution all at once. Your particular situation will dictate which is the best method for you.
5. Make Post-Implementation Adjustments & Support
The work isn't done just because the migration is finished. Once everyone has moved over to a cloud communications platform, the next task is to monitor the performance of your new system to ensure it’s optimized and working the way you want it to. Our team helps you continue a forward path by discussing your ongoing strategies, platform enhancements, product feature roadmaps, and more.
Lastly, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention post-implementation support. No matter how well-suited your system is for your business, you'll most likely need help with call flow changes, new feature activation, additional training, or assistance with technical issue escalation at some point after you migrate.
Some companies use vendor support, and some opt to elect a professional services agreement with us, where we provide U.S.-based assistance through our TAM team.
Are you ready to get started with your cloud migration? Converged Technology Professionals can help you with everything you'll need for your move, including key business drivers, success criteria, and project timelines, so that you'll understand every step of the process. Contact us to get started.
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