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If you’ve decided to explore the cloud, taking two important steps upfront will get the effort off to a great start and ensure a successful outcome that meets all your needs.

Cloud Exploration: Step I

The first, most important step you can take is to identify and build your cloud team -- key individuals within your organization who will help you articulate current communication needs, navigate various solutions and, ultimately, assist in successfully implementing cloud technologies in your organization.

Every organization is unique and roles within them vary, but the key is to have the right people on board from the start of your due diligence to the end of your implementation. While it might be tempting to form a large committee, all you really need is a party of three.

To effectively carry out its mission, your planning team must have a good understanding of your current landscape - including existing hardware, software, problems, competition – along with the overall strategic direction and future goals of your business. In addition, team members need to have a holistic view of your company and industry, so they can accurately represent the wants and needs of other departments that will be affected by the change.

Together the team will define the requirements of the operation, assess how each vendor stacks up against those requirements, and work to successfully implement the best solution within your organization.

Here’s a closer look at what each team member should bring to the table:

The Thought Leader: The thought leader is the big picture person who typically holds a C-level or other senior operations role, such as CIO and director of operations. In addition to understanding the overall strategic goals of the organization, the thought leader must have the authority to make decisions and implement them accordingly. This is not an easy job: While it’s important to get buy-in throughout your organization, the thought leader has to be willing to make hard calls, break ties from previous vendors and, at times, openly advocate for the best solution (even if it may not be the most popular).

The Resident Technical Expert: The resident technical expert not only has a detailed understanding of your current IT environment and systems, but also is up to speed on newer technology alternatives. Typically, this individual is a member of the IT department, but he/she can also be that unofficial expert everyone turns to for technical help. The resident technical expert knows the details of your hardware, software, locations, contract terminations, integration requirements and other information pertinent to the operations of your contact center. This individual may also be a good point person for identifying and researching potential solutions partners.

The Business Advocate: The business advocate is a great complement to the resident technical expert. This individual clearly understands the processes behind the data. He/she has intimate knowledge of your business workflows, along with an understanding of how workflows affect staff and customers. The business advocate can articulate what’s ailing daily operations and provide recommendations on how to improve. An effective business advocate grasps the needs of both your customers and agents, and also understands how the contact center supports other areas such as sales and accounting. The advocate might be the call center manager or a team lead and may be the ideal person to serve as the team’s project manager, attending to details and helping to keep the project on track.

Cloud Exploration: Step II

Once your team is in place, a clear plan of attack should be developed to drive toward an outcome that supports company as well as departmental goals. For instance, are you trying to streamline workflows to save time? Or maybe you hope to improve customer satisfaction scores? Perhaps you want to improve productivity by equipping your agents with the proper scripting tools. Whatever your goals, make sure there is a universal and shared vision. Developing a solid plan based on specific business objectives will allow you to take control of the conversation when talking to vendors and properly compare solutions.

When researching providers, here are a few starter questions to add to your list:

· Can you explain how your infrastructure works?

· How do you monitor uptime?

· How does your support work?

· Will my business be compliant using your solution? What compliance standards to you support?

· How will your features address our needs?

· How does your solution support scaling as my business grows?

· Can we add licenses easily?

· Can we integrate with our existing systems?

· How much effort will it be to manage and what tools will we have to manage?

· How will you handle implementation and support?

Look for longevity, security and providers that can offer you multiple solutions under one roof, then outline key differentiators for each. Doing so will allow you to clearly determine which solution will be the best fit to help your organization reach its goals.

Providers who do not have your best interests at heart may try to sell you ideas and technologies that don’t quite fit or have a plethora of features that are overkill for your budget and needs. But the providers who truly want to see you succeed will offer honest answers and customized solutions that will allow your business to thrive.

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Matt Lautz is president of CorvisaCloud, the cloud-based contact center solution provider. With a 15 year career in building and managing software companies, Matt started his first software development company at the age of 16 which grew into a software development and VoIP company where he served as CEO for over eight years. During his time as CEO, Matt led a team that managed customers in over 15 countries and processed over four million VoIP transactions per day. He also successfully led investment capital raises for more than $4.5 million and orchestrated the acquisitions of two product lines.