At the Envision conference today we went deeply into the cloud. We worked with partners and with Microsoft colleagues to establish the real cost of going to the cloud vs. staying on premise.  According to a September 2015 analysis by the Gartner research firm, the top three positive financial impacts of cloud computing are: 1) Greater agility with infrastructure as a service (it’s easy to fluctuate up or down as demand changes); 2) Increased retained cash (CIOs don’t have to spend cash upfront), and 3) Reduced opportunity costs; the cloud allows a company to free up cash to invest in other parts of the business, such as expansion or innovation.

Despite these benefits, may companies have found that shifting big apps to web-friendly cloud services is complex. The company that makes this move needs proper expense controls and a clear understanding of where it’s going. A good partner who can manage cloud services is crucial as well.  The client company should have an in-depth conversation with its managed services provider, and they both should agree on a roadmap and an underlying strategy, as well as future growth goals which will need to be supported by the infrastructure.  The client’s priorities (speed, security, productivity, support, etc.) should be clearly spelled out. This is an exciting time to move to the cloud.

In the afternoon, Microsoft gave us the wonderful gift of bringing in keynote speaker Tim Shriver, the Chairman of Special Olympics. Mr. Shriver asked each of us to decide what makes us feel fully alive, what is the answer to our life’s unique purpose, the source of our strength.  He and Microsoft will bring Special Olympics to the cloud, which will help it realize its vision of serving 10 million athletes in the year 2020. This number made the promise of the cloud real to many of the attendees. As one of our partners said today, it’s not a question of if you will move to the cloud, but when and how.