Why Data Migration Solutions Are Important for Automated Customer Experience

It is hard to overemphasize the vital role that customer experience (CX) plays in businesses nowadays. CX is overwhelmingly the core factor that drives the growth now and into the post-pandemic recovery for any growth brand. To get it right, companies would need to think more beyond the "typical customer." The experience is what makes a difference that causes people to come back in each context. Market disruptors are grabbing market share by leading a digital experience fueled by data migration solutions for better engagement.

Driving better experiences with data is essential. Therefore, data migration solutions have become a vital component of any company's data management. By implementing the best practices, one can unlock the full impact of their data.

The recent pandemic has witnessed more and more organizations accelerating their move for data migration, and becoming more agile, cost-effective, and unique in their customer experience. Data migration is now crucial in completing an end-to-end digital transformation. Now, more than ever, data migration is the key to guide businesses redefine and outsmart the uncertainty.

What is Data Migration?

Data Migration can be a one-way journey that consists of transporting all the existing information to a target location such as new storage, system, or file format.

This complete process involves a lot of preparation and activities like planning, creating backups, quality testing, and validation of results. Finally, the migration procedure ends when the old system, database, or environment is shut down.

What are the Different Types of Data Migration Solutions?

There are four main types of data migrations. They need sufficient planning beforehand and validation afterward.

Storage Migration

It is the process of transferring data to an updated system from obsolete arrays. This entire process consists of moving the data from one physical medium to another. For instance, from mainframe computers to cloud storage or from paper to digital documents.

Storage migration improves performance while making it a cost-effective scaling process. The key reason behind this shift is a dire need for technology upgrades. For large-scale systems, the migration process can last for years.

Application Migration

This consists of moving the application programs to a modern environment. For instance, this process can carry a complete application system from an on-premises IT center to the cloud. The primary challenge here could be that existing and new infrastructures may have unique data models and work with multiple data formats.

Database Migration

A database isn't only a place for storing data. It also offers a structure to organize your information in a particular way while controlling it by a database management system (DBMS). Database migration often refers to leveling up to the latest version of DBMS or switching to a new DBMS. For instance, from Oracle to MSSQL.

Business Process Migration

This migration process is usually led by business optimization, restructuring to tackle new challenges, and mergers and acquisitions. These changes need the transfer of business databases and applications with data on operations, customers, and products to the new environment.

Key Benefits of Data Migration

Knowing what Data migration is, how it can bring advantages for your business, and what is involved in the process to make it happen, will help you to choose the best strategy to accomplish a perfect transition.

Before migrating, ensure you understand the several benefits that data migration has to offer.

Data migration is essential for multiple reasons, including -

• Reduced expenses with significant improvements in ROI - Cost-effectiveness is one of the considerable benefits of data migration. A survey by Rackspace says that 88% of the brands save time and money while depending on cloud migration to run their business.

• Agility - When it comes to agility, businesses seamlessly transfer data among multiple different apps and platforms. Opting for data migration, your business remains agile while avoiding any obstacles that might appear in specific vendors and platforms.

• Better collaboration - Migrating your business apps enables your business to access them remotely, which is suitable for collaboration. Using collaboration tools, software, and apps, other services, documents and databases can be accessed from anywhere. This allows the staff to collaborate effectively. However, sending files or documents back and forth can be time-taking. Cloud migration helps in reducing that.

• Data migration saves money for unused data. In addition, it provides ample opportunities to boost or lessen up resources according to business requirements. This helps in IT infrastructure and resource allocation in the future. It also decreases the unnecessary workload so that you can focus on essential business requirements.

• Competitiveness - Data migration is an enterprise-class technology that is cost-effective for midmarket companies. There are pay-as-you-go service and cloud business applications available that reduces the cost of maintenance in long-term.

Things to Keep in Mind While Considering Data Migration

Discuss the timing

Data migration solutions can be conducted at any given time, but it is beneficial in situations like after a merger or acquisition happened in your organization. Data migration will be a data integration project in such a case, as you include data from several organizations. These projects can be quite helpful after an application migration, cloud migration, or storage migration.

Take a complete Data inventory

Migrating all of your data safely means you must know where all of the data is being located and its format. Get a complete inventory of the data in each of your systems. For instance, you must consider types or categories of data your business deals with, different formats of data, and data locations. It is also quite significant to be aware of how data impacts your existing business processes.

Assess your data governance practices

Opting for a data migration solutions project means there is an opportunity to assess and enhance your data governance practices. Recognize the issues with your system's source data and fix them as you migrate data. Take a closer look at the technology, processes, and people connected with your data.

Evaluate disaster recovery processes

Losing data can create setbacks for any company. Before initiating any data migration project, ensure you have proper backups. You would also need to have a validation plan to confirm the data transfer procedure is successful.

Recognize and engage all of your stakeholders

In any organization, everyone is connected to data. Therefore, make sure to interact with all the leaders from different departments that could be affected by a data migration project. To work smoothly with all potential stakeholders, you would need to engage them to avoid any data ownership issues.

Create a Solid Foundation with Data Migration

A modern data migration strategy for improved CX requires multiple initiatives such as breaking down data silos and cultivating new working ways. In addition, industry experts say that a robust plan is necessary for consistent success. By getting their data migration right, companies can become more agile in this ever-evolving world. Without it, it becomes more challenging to address the significant shifts happening in customer behavior.

Want more? Connect with us to learn more about how we can help you put the customer at the center of everything you do.