How to migrate to SaaS applications

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Best practices before, during and after a migration

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Moving to a new house is considered one of the most stressful experiences in life. When planning a move, an important task is to discard old items — things that are overused or things we never use — and overcome our emotional attachment to those items. Imagine the benefits of following some basic rules to avoid bringing unneeded items to the new house. And imagine the benefits of using modern technologies to help us scan and discard these unneeded items.

Moving from legacy applications to cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS)

applications is no different. The process is demanding — but can be done skillfully

and deliver positive business outcomes. Such a move gives us an opportunity

to discard old items and old ways of doing things while managing emotional

involvement, resistance to change and challenges to the status quo. Developing a

sound approach with rules, and deploying proven tools, will help make the move

easier and deliver numerous business benefits. (See “Benefits of technology-driven

cloud migration.”)

Enterprises can migrate successfully if they have the right tools,

technologies and expertise at their disposal. This paper lays out

actions to take before, during and after migration to the cloud.

A fresh start To enable digital transformation, enterprises should

have business systems that are operationally agile

and efficient. Migrating to cloud-based SaaS

applications provides flexibility to support new

business models and improvements in key areas

such as data portability, analytics and security. A

successful move involves using technology in new

ways and leaving behind bad habits and items

you never use.

Traditionally, most enterprise resource planning

(ERP) projects start with business process

reengineering, whiteboard sessions, offsite process

walk-throughs, process mapping and so on. Most,

if not all, of these activities should be performed

with the help of new technologies, which can provide

data-driven, fact-based views of current processes

and non-biased options. This removes the guesswork and

opinion-based best-practices discussions that have become

all too familiar.

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A technology-driven migration has several benefits, including:

• Speed. A data-driven migration delivers value faster.

• Cost reduction. Visualizing process flows and augmenting human efforts provide benefits at lower costs.

• Better quality. The technology corrects mistakes before they happen.

• Smooth migration path. Predefined tools and techniques accelerate and streamline consolidation, validation and migration to SaaS.

• Continuous improvement. Next-gen technologies drive continuous improvement and return on cloud Investments.

Benefits of technology-driven cloud migration

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A successful migration to SaaS applications requires a technology-driven approach

that guides the enterprise before, during and after the migration, with a focus on

delivering business value and maximizing return on investment. Using advanced

technologies such as data mining, machine learning and predictive intelligence,

enterprises can identify and proactively address opportunities to reduce costs,

improve quality and spur innovation. The approach includes analyzing the data and

various components involved in the migration, validating them and taking actions

that will ultimately produce positive business outcomes. (See Figure 1.)

Before the move: Discover and design

Before implementing SaaS, enterprises should deploy data-discovery tools to identify

the current state of their business processes. The goal is to build a comprehensive

digital blueprint of all process activities.

Enterprises should make the necessary up-front investment in time and resources to

build foundational structures that will support system migrations. They should:

• Use tools such as Hadoop, Spark and Google TensorFlow to construct machine-

generated process mapping, automated metrics calculations and intelligent “hot

spot” analysis

• Generate metrics for every process step and every record or case that has been

processed

• Uncover unknown facts of all possible paths or broken processes and the reasons

behind each of those instances

• Identify pain points based on facts such as numbers of occurrences, process

variations, repetitions, average durations and long durations

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Figure 1. Technology-driven cloud migration starts with data analysis

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• Pinpoint opportunities to consolidate, simplify and modernize business processes to

eliminate redundancy

• Provide metrics to improve cycle time and cost

• Deploy process improvement approaches to simulate and compare current-state

processes versus SaaS processes to identify process-improvement opportunities,

change-management approaches and training strategies

A key output of these actions is a machine-generated digital baseline. An important

step in producing a digital baseline is to create a diagram of the processes that

you think exist in the enterprise, what change-inducing factors have occurred over

time, and therefore what processes likely exist now. (See Figure 2.) With a machine-

generated digital baseline, enterprises will know what to fix (hot spots) and precisely

where the fix must be applied, using the best processes offered by SaaS products

supported by automation, simple procedural and policy adjustments, and process-

performance dashboards.

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Figure 2. Creating a digital baseline of processes

Process Discovery Rapid Deployments Managed Services Robotic Automation

Data-drivenprocess discovery

Modern bestpractices

Online questionnaire-based interviews

Pre-build data andconfiguration templates

Automated data andconfiguration injection

Role-basedsecurity

Test scripts and automation

End usertraining

Tablets and mobilereporting

Rapid deployments

Managed servicescontinuous delivery

Robotic automationand optimization

Transform - Process, Dataand Reporting

Outperform - Simplify andAutomate Processes

Object Starts

What we think exists... What likely exists...

Over time...

Exceptions

Variances

Interventions

Bottlenecks

Manual Processing

Shadow Spreadsheets

Approval Queues

M&A

process update

process

record

criteria

process

Object Ends

Migrate - ConfigurationEntities

Once the diagram is mapped out, enterprise process champions can analyze it,

looking at the source system, customizations and SaaS cloud solution and performing

an impact analysis. Then, instead of forcing a preconfigured solution onto the

enterprise, solutions can be tailored based on modern best practices.

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During the move: Migrate and transform

With the digital blueprint in place, next comes the migration. Having a machine-

generated digital baseline is crucial because it provides a complete digital blueprint

to build from. Now, it’s time to deploy migration tools.

It is important to deploy a wide array of migration and testing tools to perform

extracts, inject setups and master data, and engage in end-to-end automated

functional testing of applications and other critical tasks. The migration path relies

on process discovery, rapid deployments and automation to transform the enterprise.

(See Figure 3.)

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Figure 3. Comprehensive automation for migrating to a cloud-based SaaS application

Follow these steps to complete a successful SaaS migration:

• Conduct online, questionnaire-based interviews to compile configurations for the

SaaS functional setup manager.

• Deploy automated and secure software to prepare all data, and install it directly

into the target instance.

• Auto-inject all configurations to stand up SaaS instances with future-state business

processes.

• Provide reports and dashboards to review configuration injections and ensure that

all configurations are loaded, verifying that they are correct and supported.

Process Discovery Rapid Deployments Managed Services Robotic Automation

Data-drivenprocess discovery

Modern bestpractices

Online questionnaire-based interviews

Pre-build data andconfiguration templates

Automated data andconfiguration injection

Role-basedsecurity

Test scripts and automation

End usertraining

Tablets and mobilereporting

Rapid deployments

Managed servicescontinuous delivery

Robotic automationand optimization

Transform - Process, Dataand Reporting

Outperform - Simplify andAutomate Processes

Object Starts

What we think exists... What likely exists...

Over time...

Exceptions

Variances

Interventions

Bottlenecks

Manual Processing

Shadow Spreadsheets

Approval Queues

M&A

process update

process

record

criteria

process

Object Ends

Migrate - ConfigurationEntities

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• Deploy tools that allow configuration simulations and comparisons to test different

scenarios and migrate configurations between environments.

• Establish a test repository with assets such as scenario descriptions, test scripts

and user-configurable workbooks.

• Provision a testing-as-a-service (TaaS) automated testing tool to significantly

reduce testing time and costs for quarterly updates and to enable the delivery of

high-quality solutions.

After the move: Automate and optimize

Once the migration is complete and the newly transformed SaaS solution is in place,

the focus turns to automation and optimization. The goal is to drive continuous

improvement via lean methods to optimize workflows and team performance. This

results in better quality and performance, as well as positive business outcomes.

Enterprises should undertake several postmigration actions, including:

• Provide managed services, including continuous delivery, for perpetual support and

governance of cloud applications, including functions such as quarterly updates

and automated testing.

• Refresh the digital blueprint to validate the solution’s effectiveness and pinpoint hot

spots statistically worthy of automation.

• Create proof of performance with pre- and post-improvement performance metrics

snapshots.

• Leverage automation insights to identify automation candidates, based on

comprehensive historical data, to ensure that the digital workforce (bots) is

executing each automation step successfully as planned, even as processes and

technologies change.

• Engage in continuous innovation and optimization to expand and maximize the

value of cloud and automation investments.

Enterprises can use a variety of tools and techniques to eliminate waste from existing

business processes, adopting modern best practices to simplify and standardize

process flows. Enterprises can deploy cognitive/artificial intelligence robots to serve

as a virtual workforce that rapidly improves speed and quality and reduces costs.

Even simple automations are immediately effective, if you know where to deploy

them.

Take a measured, data-driven approach

Moving business systems to cloud-based SaaS applications delivers many business

benefits, unlocking innovation and improving user experience. Enterprises have

moved beyond asking preliminary questions about modern technologies such as data

mining, machine learning and predictive intelligence. The more important questions

are when and how to adopt these technologies to simplify and automate business

processes, upgrade business capabilities and enhance user experience.

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About DXC Technology

As the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services company, DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) leads digital transformations for clients by modernizing and integrating their mainstream IT, and by deploying digital solutions at scale to produce better business outcomes. The company’s technology independence, global talent, and extensive partner network enable 6,000 private and public-sector clients in 70 countries to thrive on change. DXC is a recognized leader in corporate responsibility. For more information, visit www.dxc.technology and explore thrive.dxc.technology, DXC’s digital destination for changemakers and innovators.

© 2019 DXC Technology Company. All rights reserved. February 2019

The primary goals are to successfully implement and optimize quality cloud solutions,

reduce risk and improve business outcomes. A measured, data-driven approach that

includes developing a machine-generated digital baseline and migration blueprint,

and uses automated tools, can go a long way toward making the move to the cloud

smooth and successful.

About the author

Manish Patel is digital transformation advisor at DXC

Technology. He is responsible for building and driving adoption

of Oracle digital cloud solutions — including robotic process

automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet

of things and analytics — to help customers transform their

business models to the next generation of digital.

How DXC can help

DXC Technology provides a broad portfolio of offerings to help enterprises migrate to the Oracle Cloud. DXC Migration Services for Oracle Cloud offers best-in-class cloud migration solutions with flexible assessment, engagement, delivery and pricing models that support enterprises’ entire cloud life-cycle needs. These services help our clients transform with next-generation capabilities such as robotic process automation (RPA), leverage new Oracle licensing incentives to save money, and migrate according to clients’ schedules and the cloud location of their choice, be it to Oracle Public Cloud, the client’s data center or a DXC data center.

How DXC can help

Learn more at www.dxc.technology/enterprise_and_cloud_apps