First, evaluate if cloud services are right for your business from a strategic and operational perspective. Then, you will need to evaluate your current set-up to understand the benefits of moving to the cloud, especially in areas such as:

• Strategic drivers ? does your demand for IT vary throughout the year?
• Service drivers ? how important are efficiencies, security, reliability, and flexibility to your business?
• Governance ? how would you rate the maturity of your operating model procedures?
• Technology landscape ? how many business users are there?
• Cost ? do you have transparency of costs for applications and infrastructure?
• Ease of migration ? when did you last invest in significant capital expenditure?

In order to make a successful transition to the cloud, you will need to answer all of these questions by reviewing your end-to-end operating model very carefully.