Cloud Adoption: 8 Biggest Barriers (& How to Overcome Them) (2024)

WatServ had the opportunity to attend and exhibit at Microsoft Ignite The Tour Torontoin January 2020. Over the course of the event, we asked attendees who visited our booth to identify their number one hurdle when it comes to cloud adoption. Below is a summary of the top eight issues reported, along with recommendations from our team on how to address them.

Top 8 Challenges to Cloud Adoption:

1. Insufficient Training

Organizations are struggling to train their employees on new technologies andto encourage adoption.

Recommendations toaddress this challenge:

A great place to start is with online learning and training resources provided from organizations like Microsoft and Google. For instance, Microsoft Learn allows employees to enhance their skills and achieve industry certifications on their own schedules. These types of online trainings usually have learning paths, from beginner to advanced, with avatars to track progression.

Another method is to deploy champions across your organization whose role it is to coach employees and drive adoption of new technologies. To complement this, your company can put motivational parameters around the framework to further incentivize skills development and cloud adoption.

2. Complexity Due toMultiple Locations and Divisions

Siloed IT infrastructure,systemsdispersed across various locations and challenges with collaborationare common challenges facing organizations.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

Begin by analyzing thecurrent stateof your company’stechnology delivery processes, organizationalmodel, capabilitiesand other factors to identify improvement opportunities.After that, you can designafuture state model incorporating value network design principles, adaptive organizationalstructure principles andagile best practices.

In addition, providingcoaching and supportcanhelpyourteam adopt improved delivery techniques and methodstosolve immediate problems.

Finally, in the longer term, implementing cross-functional teams can be helpful for supporting better collaboration and integration, whilealsoavoiding shadow IT.

3. No Strategy, So No Action

With budget constraints and competing projects,the focus ofmany organizationsissolelyon maintaining the status quo. New technologies and ways of adopting them are put on the backburner until they are deemed to be truly necessary.Deployments, migrations and implementationsare put off becausethese processescan take weeks, months or even years to complete.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

ITshouldfocus on demonstrating progress by developing an incremental working product.If they wait for the“big strategy” to come along, it may never happen ormay not be delivered as planned. Instead, by focusing on low hanging fruitfirst, IT can build momentumand showcase the added benefits of the cloud at critical moments. Together, this can change hearts and minds and pave the way for theintroduction of a largerstrategy.

Another approach is to create a roadmap that isdividedinto severalsmallerprojects and achieved incrementally.Eachsmallerprojectcanprovide itsown benefit,which eventuallyaccumulate into a much larger impact.Projects can be accomplished throughout the yearwithout burdening financial resources.

4. Worries About Data Governance

Although thiscanapplyto manyindustry verticals, data governanceisusuallyofmostconcernfor government agencies and those in the public sector. There are many myths around this topic, spurred primarily by misinformation.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

There is awidespread beliefthatthecloud cannotprotect information. This,for the most part,is not true.In fact, for companiesthatcannot keep up withregulatorychanges and internal compliance, the cloud canmakeit easier.Hyperscaleproviders,like Microsoft, Google and Amazon reviewtheirgovernance frameworksregularlyand can help guide you through the compliance process.They also offer the tools thatcan help your organization stay in compliance, such as DLP, data classification labels, encryption andso on.Furthermore, their guidance is written in plain language, making it easy to understandfor you and yourcompliance specialist.Finally, public cloud datacentershold more certifications and security measures thanmostprivate cloud or on-premisesenvironments.

As an example,making your organization’sdata center PCI-compliant in an on-premisesscenariois notparticularlyeasy. However,the cloud can simplify the process.Similarly, if you want to implementcapabilities likePIM (PrivilegedIdentity Management)in an on-premisesdatacenter, it is complex.Withthe public cloud,on the other hand, it becomes easier. There are still actions needed on the user’s end, and the cloud can’t account for all compliance requirements in all scenarios, but it does offer unique benefits for many customers.

5. Worries About Data Sovereignty

This concern is felt primarilybythepublic sector, government,militaryanddefenseorganizations–organizationsthat are heavily regulatedand that facestrict compliance rules. Datasovereigntyrulesoftenstipulate that datamustbe storedwithin the country and accessed by citizens.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

While data sovereignty requirementsmighthave been challengingto manage in the cloud several years ago,bothMicrosoftand Googlehavesince expandedtheirdatacenters within Canada,andtheycontinue toadd moreevery year. For instance, Microsoftrecently announcedtheavailabilityof morezones in Central Canada.

Furthermore, data can be restricted to specific geopolitical areas, making iteasy to determine exactly where your data is. This, combined with the fact that hyperscale providers must pass heavyauditing processes,provides increasedpeace of mind.In fact, the Government of Canada recently chose Microsoft Azure, demonstrating that the days of data sovereignty worries are coming to an end.

6. Challenges with Cost Governance

Some companies hesitate for cloud adoption because they are worriedtheircosts will increaseor that they will over-provision.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

Despite these worries, many companiesthatgo to the clouddiscoverthat cost governance iseasierthere.That is becausecost management features of the cloudallow youtoset budgets,makechargebacks to internal business units, receive alertswhen a limit is reachedand so on.For instance, you can set up a predefinedrule thatcanturn off or restrictthe use of a servicewhen they pass acertainthreshold.

By providing access to data analytics, the cloud enables companies to betterpredicttheircostsover several years. Also,Microsoft and Googleoffer various discounts for upfrontpayments and so on, which can lead to overall cost savings.

7. Analysis Paralysis

Sometimes a majorroadblockto cloud adoption stems from simply too many options.Over-thinkingor over-analyzing optionscan make it difficultto choose between Azure, Google Cloud Platform, AWS, on-premise and private cloud.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

As a starter,it’s important to remember thatmost customers are already in a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud scenario. For enterprise customers,Microsoft’s cloud platforms arelikely being utilizedinsome form or fashionastheprimaryservicedue to existing relationshipsandlegacytechnology integrationswith Active Directory andother business applications.

It’s also important to remember that all of the top three providers – Microsoft Azure, Google’s GCP and Amazon’s AWS– have cloud compute capacity and scale on demand.

Here are some key areas to examine whenassessingtheir offerings:

1. Depth and breadth of service – All of the major providers offer a vast range of services, from compute and containers to AI and ML, but if you have specific current or future business needs, you should compare offerings to see which provider best meets them.
2. Geographic needs – All three of the top providers have a global presence, with regions across most continents. However, some organizations have specific geographic restrictions due to factors like data residency or network latency requirements. If you are one of these organizations, doing an assessment of all providers is important.
3. Hybrid cloud–All three of the major providersenablehybrid cloud, but evaluating their individual capabilities is important tosee which is the best fit.Some organizations that have a substantial legacy footprint will need to integrate with thepublic cloud for seamless management of identity and security.

If your organization ishavingdifficulty choosing an ideal scenario, cloudconsultants(like our team at WatServ)can helpidentifyyour idealfuture stateand make the leapwithconfidence.

8. Complexity with Current Workloads

Formany companies, a major worry iswhethertheircurrentworkloads willrunwell in the cloud. This concern can be a major inhibitor to cloud adoption.

Recommendations to address this challenge:

To begin, an assessment should be conducted to confirm what should go to the cloud and how best to get it there. Sometimes it’s a simple lift and shift, other times it will involve a rebuild. The key is to assess accurately, do a proof of concept and, if needed, consult with external cloud experts to discover workarounds or alternate solutions.

However, by not moving forward due to unknowns, you may be putting your business at risk. Relying on old technologies usually means decreased productivity, increased security concerns, lowered performance and potential end of support from the vendor.

WatServ is an IT solutions provider that helps organizations digitally transform through cloud technologies and managed services.

Serving clients as a trusted advisor since 2006, WatServ provides experience-tested, strategic solutions across all stages of the digital transformation journey. Clients choose WatServ to migrate infrastructure and applications to the cloud, secure critical data, implement disaster recovery, deploy virtual desktop, enable data-readiness for productivity solutions and manage IT environments.

Our clients span a broad range of industries, and we’re a global supplier of IT services for many Brookfield Portfolio Companies. To help our mid-size clients, we provide scalable offerings that simplify cloud adoption and drive business optimization. For enterprise clients, we co-create cloud solutions that enable stability and efficiency for complex IT tools and processes.

With more than 15 years of experience, WatServ has a track record of delivering quantifiable business results and a superior client experience. Ranked as one of Canada’s Top 100 Solution Providers for the last three years in a row, WatServ is always on.