Ascertus blog

It’s not surprising that most firms are now actively pursuing an all-out, cloud-first IT strategy. Whilst firms had already had a taste of cloud technology, pre-pandemic – Office 365 is one example – the benefits the technology has offered to businesses over the last two years are irrefutable.

The importance of technology for business continuity has come to the fore like never before. With uncertainty reigning over the lockdown, many organisations are keenly going ahead with scheduled business-critical IT projects – all made possible by cloud technology.

“We have an adoption problem”. I’ve heard these words many times over the years. What they should really be saying is “we have a critical problem – the entire project is failing!”. System adoption is not the only measure of project success, but it’s one of the most important. Retrospectively resolving a system adoption problem can be a huge challenge, and in such instances merely resorting to the original training programme is often not enough.

The lack of effective communication is one of the top complaints from users when organisations implement change. It can be difficult to get right. The business leaders may understand why this change is necessary for the business, but the employees may not. Effective communication should promote the value of the upcoming change – for both to the organisation and the individuals – as well as deal with any concerns people may have. Done well, communication can lead to a smoother transition – improving engagement, positivity and adoption.

Lawyers today routinely work off their smartphones and mobile devices to conduct business and yet some firms are reluctant to deploy enterprise systems in the Cloud, preferring on-premises implementations instead. Rightly, organisations are concerned about security, but at the risk of repetition, very few organisations can provide the level of investment in cybersecurity and continued development that the large global Cloud providers are demonstrating on a daily basis.