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It is predicted that by the end of 2024, more than 45% of IT spending on system infrastructure, software, applications, and BPO will shift from traditional solutions to the cloud. Gartner refers to this trend as the cloud shift. However, this transition goes beyond just adopting cloud platforms – organizations are reimagining IT architectures and operations to build foundations for next-generation solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Embracing the cloud mindset: The first step toward digital transformation
To succeed in this digital transformation journey, businesses must embrace change as a constant. This change impacts not only processes but also people, culture, and leadership. According to McKinsey research, nearly 70% of organizations report leadership changes during transformation, often with new leaders who bring expertise in digital technologies.
For any organization striving to become cloud-first, adopting a cloud mindset is essential. This involves rethinking how legacy applications are modernized, developed, secured, and managed to fully leverage the capabilities of the cloud.
This blog explains why adopting a cloud mindset is critical for Dynamics 365 migration. We’ll also explore the key characteristics of a cloud-first organization and how this approach can drive greater value, innovation, and agility for your business.
Moving to the Cloud: Why it matters more than ever?
Technology is a driving force in modern business, shaping customer expectations and business goals. However, for many enterprises, outdated and complex IT systems fail to deliver the agility and innovation needed to stay competitive. IT teams often struggle with maintaining legacy systems, managing updates, and addressing infrastructure challenges, leaving little room to focus on delivering value to the business.
A cloud-based approach to business applications simplifies these challenges. By eliminating the need to manage infrastructure, patch software, or perform routine tasks, IT teams can shift their focus to optimizing business applications and delivering measurable outcomes.
Traditional business applications were built to capture and report data but rarely helped users work faster or more effectively. In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, businesses need more than just operational efficiency – they need personalization, actionable insights, and agility. By harnessing data from various sources (social media, online browsing, in-store purchases, etc.), organizations can create tailored experiences, targeted promotions, and smarter recommendations for customers that set them apart.
Modern cloud solutions like Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement empower businesses to innovate quickly, delivering real value, enhancing user productivity, and elevating customer experiences. Continuous updates and enhancements in cloud applications ensure businesses remain agile, adapting to changing market demands, disruptive competition, and evolving customer expectations.
The shift to cloud technology has also democratized development through citizen application development, where non-developers can build workflows, automate tasks, and leverage AI models to solve business problems. This approach accelerates innovation, reduces development cycles, and improves adoption, while IT departments maintain governance, secure data, and provide essential connectors and services.
Ultimately, cloud applications refocus technology’s role: driving business value through agility, innovation, and improved customer experiences, while empowering IT and business users alike to transform how they work.
Becoming a data-driven organization
Data is central to innovation across industries, generated by everything from machines to websites. What sets companies apart is their ability to interpret and act on data to improve products, processes, and customer experiences. Managing organizational data effectively—understanding databases, ensuring regulatory compliance, and addressing data silos—is critical for digital transformation.
Modern AI-driven customer data platforms (CDPs), such as Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, help create a unified and persistent customer database accessible across systems. These tools pull data from multiple sources, clean it, and combine it into a single customer profile, enabling better insights and decision-making.
It starts with establishing a strong data strategy
To maximize the value of your data, it’s crucial to define an organizational data strategy for business applications. This involves:
- Creating clear guidelines for how applications store and structure data.
- Ensuring data can be easily understood and utilized across systems.
- Choosing the most suitable data store for each use case. For instance, historical transactions may be better stored in a data lake rather than Dataverse to optimize performance.
What does being data-driven mean?
Being data-driven means understanding the quality and relevance of your data and leveraging it to gain actionable insights that enhance business processes. Organizations must embrace change by designing processes and systems that allow for agility. If it takes months or years to implement changes, the benefits of a data-driven approach are diminished.
How does Microsoft Dynamics 365 enable data-driven success?
Dynamics 365 provides a comprehensive platform that empowers organizations to:
- Build an intelligent, AI-ready data estate.
- Integrate data from legacy systems, business applications, and third-party tools.
- Implement controls to ensure data security and regulatory compliance.
- Develop continuously improving smart applications.
- Infuse data intelligence into applications, enabling smarter, faster decision-making.
- Adapt quickly to process changes with built-in agility.
Ultimately, the insights you generate depend on the quality, structure, and accessibility of your data. Establishing a solid foundation for data management and analytics ensures your business can make informed decisions and drive continuous improvement.
Thinking beyond applications: Adopt a platform approach
Instead of deploying isolated apps, organizations should prioritize building a robust cloud platform. A platform approach reduces redundancy, improves agility, and enables seamless integration with legacy systems or third-party apps. This “systems thinking” minimizes approval delays, streamlines security processes, and accelerates time to value.
Your cloud platform should include:
- Security and compliance guidelines
- Clear integration patterns
- Data storage and sharing best practices
- Access governance and licensing entitlements
Embracing DevOps and automation for agility
Traditional manual release processes are slow and prone to errors, delaying innovation. Automation and DevOps principles help organizations deliver changes quickly and reliably. By integrating testing and deployment processes (CI/CD), teams can release updates faster, reduce failures, and focus on business logic.
At the heart of the cloud approach is adopting and understanding DevOps. Tools like Azure DevOps integrate people, processes, and technology to consistently deliver value to customers. DevOps represents a cultural shift, breaking down silos between developers and administrators and fostering shared accountability for software quality. The DevOps cycle—Plan > Code > Build > Test > Release > Deploy > Operate > Monitor – streamlines software delivery, automates workflows, and accelerates the deployment lifecycle.
Transitioning with confidence: Migrating business applications from on-premises to Cloud
If you are still using on-premises business applications, you might be missing out on the flexibility, scalability, and innovation offered by the cloud. By upgrading to Dynamics 365 or migrating your on-premises solution to Dynamics 365, you can accelerate digital transformation while preserving your critical business processes and data.
With Dynamics 365 cloud migration, you can maximize your technology investments by following cloud-ready approach. However, there are key considerations you need to evaluate before making the move, which are discussed below.
Key considerations for on premise to cloud migration
The benefits of cloud migration are evident. The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP suggests that organizations can achieve an impressive 106% ROI with this ERP. However, we recognize that migrating to the cloud is a significant endeavor for many businesses. Whether your existing system is entirely on-premises or operates in a hybrid environment, tailoring the migration process to align with your business requirements can transform an otherwise daunting task into a manageable journey.
To simplify this transition, here are essential considerations for Dynamics 365 on-premise to cloud migration:
1: Evaluate your current system
Does your legacy system still meet business needs?
Assess whether your current on-premises system aligns with your business requirements and user expectations. Understanding its limitations and inefficiencies is critical to determining the best approach for cloud migration.
2: Ensure data quality and design
Is your data ready for the cloud?
Your data model, design, and quality must support cloud adoption. Poorly structured or low-quality data can hinder the adoption of new cloud capabilities and restrict business growth.
3: Choose a secure and compliant cloud platform
Is your data safe and legally compliant?
Select a cloud platform that securely stores and processes data while meeting regulatory requirements. This may involve adjusting your authentication methods, integrations, and security policies to ensure cloud readiness.
4: Understand your data flow and security
Are you prepared for data migration and governance?
Identify your data categories, flow, transformations, location, and encryption both before and after migration. This helps you adhere to security policies and streamline your migration plan.
5: Review the migration process
Do you understand the steps and prerequisites?
Migration to the cloud often involves multiple steps, including compatibility and validation checks. Reviewing the migration process and prerequisites early will help avoid delays and ensure a smooth transition.
6: Fix or replace customizations
Are your customizations cloud compatible?
Analyze your existing solution for outdated, unsupported, or risky customizations that might impact cloud performance and security. Some components may need to be updated, replaced, or re-architected.
7: Update integrations and peripheral systems
Will your existing integrations work in the cloud?
Your current integrations and peripheral applications may need adjustments to ensure compatibility with the cloud solution. Proactively address integration gaps to maintain seamless operations.
8: Account for process and performance changes
Are you ready for potential changes in usability?
Cloud migrations can introduce changes in performance, latency, service protection limits, or licensing capacities. Plan ahead to mitigate these challenges and optimize usability for your teams.
Take the next step towards digital transformation
Selecting the right cloud solution provider ensures a smooth and confident transition to the cloud. At Confiz, we specialize in Dynamics 365 implementation and Dynamics 365 migration, offering end-to-end support tailored to your business needs.
Our certified technical and functional consultants simplify the migration process, enabling a seamless upgrade to Dynamics 365.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 empowers businesses to optimize finance and supply chain operations, creating a connected enterprise through AI, automation, and advanced analytics. By migrating to AI-powered ERP, you gain the agility needed to thrive in today’s fast-paced market.
Take the first step toward transformation. Reach out to us at marketing@confiz.com for expert Dynamics 365 upgrade and migration services.
