We’ve all experienced companies with inflexible policies. The retailer that won’t accept returns. The credit card company that won’t alter its billing dates. The airline that won’t take customer service complaints over the phone.

The best companies know that it’s not about meeting their own needs, but those of their customers.  Every business has its own products and services, its own customer base, its own set of employees, its own corporate culture. With that comes a set of needs that may be very different from the next company. That is why a hybrid approach to the cloud in which companies can migrate some workloads to the cloud while keeping others on-premises, offers the flexibility and choice for business. 

Take Sartorius Group, a leading international laboratory and process technology provider. With 4,000 employees based in 40 locations worldwide, the company relies on employee communications to help customers efficiently implement complex lab and production processes.

One challenge the company faced was working productively with geographically dispersed teams. Another was connecting all employees to the network – even those in parts of the world where network connections were slow.

Company officials knew they wanted to upgrade their aging Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 email system, and began to evaluate Microsoft Office 365 as part of the Rapid Deployment Program. One of the benefits of a hybrid approach is that it has enabled Sartorius to seamlessly connect its employee test group using Exchange Online with other employees still using Exchange Server 2003. Regardless of whether they’re being served in the cloud or on-premises, employees can still see the “free/busy” status of their colleagues throughout the company, schedule meetings, and collaborate.

Sartorius plans to evaluate the experience of the initial deployment group before deciding when and how to move the rest of the organization to Office 365. One option is migrating all of its European employees to Office 365, while upgrading its on-premises messaging solution to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 for employees working in regions with slower network connections, like China.

Whether it ends up moving all of its employees to the cloud or permanently taking a hybrid approach, the company’s IT staff expects to significantly reduce the amount of time it spends on administration and server deployments. At the same time, employees will enjoy improved email and calendar management tools.

Says Heiko Moeller, Corporate Administration, IT Infrastructure and Standard Applications, Sartorius Group: “We will test the full-fidelity hybrid features between Exchange Server and Exchange Online that are only possible with Microsoft. This flexibility gives us a choice in how we plan our transition to the cloud.”

As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.”  Like water, I think our approach to the cloud offers the greatest flexibility. And in the end, maximum flexibility = maximum irresistibility.

For more information about the Sartorius Group experience, please check out the written case study. Also, please share your experience.  Is your company taking a hybrid approach to the cloud? If so, which workloads are you moving to the cloud, and which will remain on-premises?