If you wait for the perfect time for a cloud migration, you may end up watching your competition outpace you while opportunities pass you by. There’s no magic time when the stars will align just right and you’ll know it’s time to make the move. At any point, there are risks and both pros and cons to moving to the cloud, but overall, your business likely needs to consider some cloud solutions in order to keep pace with customer preferences and demand.

So, when should you pull the trigger? The answer is different for every company, but there are a few events that tend to indicate it’s a good time for a cloud migration:

Technology Upgrades: These can come in a variety of forms, from the end of life of your hardware or software to a maintenance contract expiration or the scheduled upgrade of a particular platform. For companies that own or lease hardware or software, a move to the cloud may provide a lower-cost option with fewer IT demands.

Expanded Data Requirements: As enterprises collect more data, storage of that data becomes a challenge. Building an on-site data center with all its servers, power and cooling needs, and hardware requirements can use up a lot of resources. This may be a logical time to consider a cloud migration for data storage.

Expanding Locations: When you’re bringing new branch locations into your business, it’s a good opportunity to support the entire enterprise through cloud solutions. Deploying IT across a number of branch locations can be a costly endeavor, but with the right cloud infrastructure and applications, you can build an integrated environment.

Disaster Recovery: For many enterprises, the need to protect the business from cyber attacks through a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy leads to cloud migration. Whether it’s a cloud backup solution or simply moving to cloud solutions because of their superior security policies and strategies, disaster recovery is often the impetus for a transition to the cloud.

Compliance: While enterprises in some industries like healthcare or finance have delayed cloud migration due to the high level of diligence required, that trend is reversing. New rules and regulations for compliance mean that many companies are struggling to identify where data resides and who has access to it without the advanced tools available through cloud solutions.

Benefits of Cloud Migration: Ultimately, enterprises tend to make a shift when the benefits of scalability, agility, reduced costs, and innovation all outweigh the benefits of keeping legacy solutions. In many cases, enterprises recognize that they’ll soon miss opportunities with existing or potential customers if they don’t invest in cloud technology.

If you’re considering whether now is the time to make a move to the cloud, contact us at eXemplify. We can help you identify the signs that a transition would be beneficial as well as the indicators that it might be best to wait.