Current State Awareness. Various projects and initiatives that compete or overlap can create “ghosts in the machine,” which cause unintended consequences in functionality. Knowing one’s current state can be a challenge. Understanding current risk posture, policy implementation, regulatory constraints, data criticality and management controls helps gauge how significant investments are and guide the focus of resources.

Continuity Training And Operations. As critical headcount turns over in your support, architecture and engineering organization, turnover and training are sometimes missed. To continue getting the value out of your investment and ensure that the business functions while controls that rely on the tools don’t experience an interruption, training is key to reducing the cost of transition.

Cost. The outcome of the professional services engagement must be worth more to the business than the cost of the engagement itself. Frequently, regulatory or compliance remediation forces an enterprise to hire strategic professional services to identify and remediate the findings. Professional services can be used to help you understand the true cost of using cloud services, the value of mitigating threats and vulnerabilities, and more.

Moving to the cloud is the right decision for many organizations; sometimes it’s a foregone conclusion. Technically, the cloud doesn’t exist; what it really consists of is using a vendor’s hardware and software. It’s essential that companies begin this venture equipped with the knowledge that professional services provide, so that they have an effective deployment and continued plan that works for them.