If you’re running an organization right now, then you’re probably privy to the new buzzword that’s caught the interest of the business world at large:  “cloud”.  The year 2012 opened with a flood of information on cloud technology, its benefits, and the improvements developers are planning to implement within the year.  That is why, even if you didn’t pay much attention to it in previous years, it’s inspired your curiosity now.

In fact, the cloud looks more appealing the more you hear about it and research about it.  With enterprise-level content management systems among its ranks, who wouldn’t be intrigued?  After all, if you can get high-quality solutions for a price that’s relatively lower than more conventional options, you can do your business a lot of good, right?

Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.

How to Move to the Cloud

Cloud solutions aren’t necessarily the best solutions for you

The cloud-based solutions that you find within your budget won’t necessarily solve your problems, which is what you should expect out of any service you want to employ.  While it certainly is tempting to move everything in your operations over to the cloud, you need to really think about the effects it will have in the way you do your work.

Whether you like to think about it or not, the cloud will have a profound impact on the way you operate.  Depending on how you handle the transition, it could mean great profit for your business…or it could mean disaster.

So what should you do when you’re thinking about making the move?

Before you finalize the decision to move to the cloud, you have to make sure that it’s something that can and are willing to handle.  As such, you need to:

• Understand your motives – Are you doing this because you want better, more flexible approach to working, or are you just doing this to save money?  While the cloud can certainly promise you both flexibility and affordability, having a one-dimensional reason for switching can skew your expectations of a product or service.  You need to be sure that the cloud is something that you really need, rather than something that you just want.
• Understand what cloud products really offer – In general, cloud-based solutions are affordable and flexible in terms of functionality.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can do everything.  While there are many services of this type that could honestly offer customizable features, they often have limitations to this kind of promise.  If you want your system to be able to do something very specific, you might be better off with a more traditional in-house system.
• Understand what your own company can do – Have you considered the possibility of finding internal solutions?  More often than not, it’s more efficient and cost-effective to solve your own problem.  Rather than shelling out money (no matter how small the amount is) on an outside solution, see if you can innovate on your own.

It’s still more satisfying to have the right solution rather than the new and more exciting solution.

Nancy writes for Techatlast and BHT as a content writer and she shares the best cloud services for your liking. They are: SpringCM, which works with companies like Facebook and Avon) and business phone systems (like RingCentral, which has won several innovation and industry awards). You can also write for Techatlast.