A lot of enterprises migrate to the public cloud because they see everyone else doing it. And while you should stay up on the latest and greatest innovations—which often happen in the cloud—you need to be aware of the realities and understand different migration strategies. You need to know why you’re moving to the cloud. What’s your goal? And what outcomes are you seeking? Make sure you know what you’re getting your enterprise into before moving forward in your journey. Here are six stubborn myths that persist about the public cloud and the realities you’re facing.

1. Cloud Technology is not a Project, it’s a Constant

Be aware that while there is a starting point to becoming more cloud-native—the migration—there is no stopping point. The migration occurs, but the transformation, development, innovation and optimization is never over.

There are endless applications and tools to consider; your organization will evolve over time, technology changes regularly and user preferences change even faster. Fueled by your new operating system, cloud computing puts you into continuous motion. While continuous motion is positive for outcomes, you need to be ready to ride the wave regardless of where it goes. Once you get on, success requires that you stay there.

2. Flex-Agility is Necessary to Survival

Flexibility + agility = flex-agility, and you need it in the cloud. Flex-agility enables enterprises to adapt to the risks and unknowns occurring in the world. The pandemic continues to highlight the need for flex-agility in business. Organizations further along in their cloud journeys were able to quickly establish remote workforces, adjust customer interactions, communicate completely and effectively and, ultimately, continue running. While the pandemic was unprecedented, more commonly, flex-agility is necessary in natural disasters like floods, hurricanes and tornadoes; after a ransomware or phishing attack; or when an employee’s device is lost, stolen or destroyed.

3. You Still Have to Move Faster Than the Competition

Gaining or maintaining your competitive edge in the cloud has a lot to do with speed. Whether it’s the dog-eat-dog nature of your industry, macroeconomics or a political environment, these are the things that speed up innovation. You might not have any control over these factors, but they’re shaping the way consumers interact with brands. Again, when you think about how digital transformation evolved during the pandemic, you saw winning businesses move the fastest. The cloud is an amazing opportunity to meet all the demands of your environment but if you’re not looking forward, forecasting trends and moving faster than the competition, you could fall behind.

4. People are Riskier than Technology

In many ways, technology is the easiest part of an enterprise cloud strategy. It’s people that introduce much of the risk involved. You may have a great strategy with clean processes and tactics, but if the execution is poor, the business can’t succeed. A recent survey revealed that 85% of organizations report deficits in cloud expertise, with the top three areas being cloud platforms, cloud-native engineering and security. While business owners acknowledge the importance of these skills, they’re still struggling to attract the caliber of talent necessary.

In addition to partnering with cloud service experts to ensure a capable team, organizations are also reinventing their technical culture to work more like a startup. This can incentivize the cloud-capable with hybrid work environments, an emphasis on collaboration, use of the agile framework and fostering innovation.

5. Cost-Savings is Not the Best Reason to Migrate

Buy-in from executives is key for any enterprise transitioning to the cloud. Budget and resources are necessary to continue moving forward, but the business value of a cloud transformation isn’t entirely about cost savings. Really, it’s about repurposing dollars to achieve other things. At the end of the day, companies are focused on getting customers, keeping customers and growing customers, and that’s what the cloud helps to support.

By innovating products and services in a cloud environment, an organization is able to give customers new experiences, sell them new things and delight them with helpful customer service and a solid user experience. The cloud isn’t a cost center, it’s a business enabler, and that’s what leadership needs to hear.

6. Cloud Migration Isn’t Always the Right Answer

Many enterprises believe that the process of moving to the cloud will solve all of their problems. Unfortunately, the cloud is just the most popular technology operating system platform available today. Sure, it can help you reach your goals with easy-to-use functionality, automated tools and modern business solutions, but it takes effort to use and apply those resources for success.

For most organizations, moving to the cloud is the right answer, but it could be the wrong time. The organization might not know how it wants to use cloud functionality. Maybe outcomes haven’t been identified yet, the business strategy doesn’t have buy-in from leadership or technicians aren’t aware of the potential opportunities. Another issue stalling migration is internal expertise (or lack thereof). If your technicians aren’t cloud-savvy enough to handle all the moving parts, bring on a collaborative cloud advisor to ensure success.