The Cloud Migration Blind Spot
Helio Manufacturing is moving its customer-relationship management system to a SaaS provider. The project plan is dominated by data migration and integration testing. The contract was signed on price and functionality; it contains no exit clause, no data-ownership statement, and no service-level remedy for outages. Internal sales operations staff have had two hours of training on the new tool. The old approval process for customer credits - three manual signatures - has been copied unchanged into the new system. Three weeks after go-live, 30% of sales agents still use spreadsheets, and customer credit approvals take longer than before.
1. Using the four dimensions of service management, identify which dimensions are under-addressed and give evidence from the scenario.
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The four dimensions are organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes.
- Organizations and people - under-addressed. Two hours of training is thin for a CRM change. Thirty per cent of agents still use spreadsheets, which suggests capability and habit gaps, not just a tool problem.
- Information and technology - partly addressed. Data migration and integration are planned, but data ownership and exit are unresolved. The SaaS contract lacks an exit clause and a data-ownership statement.
- Partners and suppliers - clearly under-addressed. There is no exit clause, no data-ownership statement, and no service-level remedy for outages. This is the most visible contractual blind spot.
- Value streams and processes - under-addressed. The three-signature credit approval was copied unchanged. It was designed for the old system and may not fit the new value stream; approvals are now slower.
2. Which dimension poses the greatest immediate risk to service value, and why? Recommend two actions.
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There are two different “greatest risks,” and they should not be conflated.
- Greatest governance and continuity risk: partners and suppliers. A missing exit clause and unclear data ownership can create legal, portability, and continuity exposure that the project team cannot fix locally. If the relationship fails, Helio may not be able to leave cleanly or retrieve its data.
- Greatest current operational risk: value streams and processes. The copied three-signature approval is directly causing longer approval times and encouraging spreadsheet workarounds.
Recommended actions:
- Amend or renegotiate the contract now for data ownership, exit assistance, and outage remedies before further rollout.
- Map the credit-approval value stream, remove unnecessary signatures, and test the simplified process with users before extending the tool.
Treating only the technology dimension would leave both risks in place.
3. How should the project team use the four dimensions to decide what to fix first?
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Use the dimensions as a diagnostic checklist, not a scorecard. For each dimension ask: what must be true for this service to create value? Then rank the gaps by their impact on the two visible symptoms - slow credit approvals and spreadsheet use - and by how reversible they are.
A practical order is:
- Fix the process and people gaps quickly, because they affect daily use and are within the team’s control.
- Treat the supplier contract as a gating item for any further scale-up.
- Keep technology work focused on integration and data quality rather than adding scope.
Assign an owner for each dimension and review progress weekly. The point is to prevent the project from optimizing only the dimension it finds easiest to manage.