Discovery workshops are an important part of any cloud migration or digital transformation project at Cloud Business. Workshops like our Microsoft Cloud Assessment are designed to lay the foundations of a migration project and set organisations up for success. Investing time at this stage of a project is rewarded time and time again throughout the process, and continues to deliver value as your users get the benefits of the Microsoft modern workplace.
What is a Microsoft Cloud Assessment?
We’ve developed a 2 day service that gives you and your team access to our Office 365 experts*. They will tailor the service to your needs and what you want to achieve from digital transformation, deliver the workshop and then provide a migration roadmap for getting there.
To start with, our approach is to take a step back from the technology. You may have decided that Office 365 is for you but our first question won’t be “when do you want it?” Instead we’re interested in what’s driving this decision, so we can really understand what you want to achieve. We’ll also encourage you and your colleagues to look at your requirement with fresh eyes – inviting you to Reimagine everyday. By taking a holistic view we can ensure the technology is aligned with your business strategy, infrastructure, users and culture.
The Microsoft Cloud Assessment explores your cloud readiness, where you are today, critical business considerations, what products you have and what you don’t, and what’s required for a painless implementation. We identify challenges and determine next steps.
The output from the assessment is a report fully illustrating how your Office 365 tenant will be produced for you. This report includes recommendations for increasing security, optimising licensing, user adoption, governance, cost management, and detailed costs for implementation.
Whether or not you decide to go ahead and engage our team, the report effectively provides you with a roadmap for a successful Office 365 migration.
What is the structure of a Cloud Assessment workshop?
We’ve refined our service over the years to deliver maximum value to our customers, whatever their challenges and business objectives. Cloud Assessments are tailored to your specific needs, but normally look like this:
Briefing call: a 60 minute Microsoft Teams call with introductions, background to the organisation and understanding priorities and knowledge across the service. We can then ensure the workshop day is aligned with your requirements.
Day 1 – Onsite or Virtual Workshop: a deep dive into Office 365, your technology environment and what you want to achieve. A typical agenda includes:
- An introduction to Digital Productivity in Office 365
- A ‘Day in the life’ demonstration illustrating modern ways of working based on some common scenarios.
- An overview of popular productivity apps in Office 365 and use cases
- Infrastructure review and current challenges
- Demonstration of the capabilities of Azure
- Licensing
- Security and governance
- User Experience and Adoption strategies
- Discuss options and priorities
- What is needed to get started
- High Level Plan and example Architecture
- Summary and next steps
Day 2 – Decision Support: we document notes and research from Day 1. You will receive a detailed overview of the session including:
- Analysis of existing infrastructure
- Recommendations and steps for moving your business to Office 365 and Azure*
- Current challenges affecting your business and how these may be offset by cloud migration
- A roadmap for a successful Microsoft cloud migration
- Our experts are also available to provide support on key decisions
For a more detailed overview of the Microsoft Cloud Assessment structure and output, please download the information sheet here >
Are you ready for the Microsoft Cloud?
It is not uncommon for an organisation to embark on a cloud migration and discover that they’re not actually ready. As a result they might struggle to get the ROI from the technology deployed, the user benefits, or achieve their digital transformation goals.
A successful cloud migration involves detailed discovery and planning, and cloud readiness is a vital factor in this. A Microsoft Cloud Assessment can help you decide if you’re ready, and if you’re not it will provide you with the next steps to get there.
To see whether the time is right, our Cloud Readiness Worksheet will give you an idea. Download it here to see >
If you would like to discuss booking a Microsoft Cloud Assessment workshop please get in touch. You can email hello@cloudbusiness.com or book an initial online meeting here >
*we can also deliver an Azure Cloud Assessment workshop with a similar structure to the one above.
