Put your calculator away for just a moment. When we talk about the real cost of moving to the cloud we aren't in this instance talking about the actual cost of moving to the cloud, or the annual cost of taking up a paid subscription service. Cost can come in many other forms. Not moving to the cloud can also cost other priceless capabilities such as business agility. For those businesses that haven’t made the transition to the cloud just yet, let’s take a closer look at the values (monetary and otherwise), you may not have considered yet.
DREAM BUSINESS AGILITY
Businesses that have already turned to cloud say their primary reason for making the strategic switch to cloud was business agility, allowing them to operate in the most efficient way possible. A study by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found that companies who are moving quickly to adopt cloud computing, are actually winning the competitive advantage by reducing IT complexity and increasing their business agility. Also according to McKinsey & Company, cloud computing has been linked directly to business agility by providing faster revenue growth, greater and more lasting cost reduction, and much more effective management of risks and reputational threats. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that businesses are flocking to the cloud.
A MATTER OF $ COST
As a business, making (not losing) money is always your top priority. In the majority of cases changing to the cloud can be less expensive and more valuable than your current on premise solutions. Moving to the cloud eliminates any long distance costs, you only pay for the storage capacity you need, and cloud reduces hardware acquisition, on-site bandwidth, and maintenance and software costs. In addition to keeping your general IT costs down, a recent IBM survey stated that organisations who adopted cloud solutions are reporting almost double the revenue growth and nearly 2.5 times higher gross profit, compared to those companies that haven’t moved to the cloud yet.
EXCEPTIONAL CAPITAL SAVINGS
Speaking of cost, we all know starting a business can be an expensive venture, and when you run your own servers you have to deal with up-front capital costs. This can be quite costly when you include the wide range of physical infrastructure such as office space. With cloud everything is hosted from your chosen cloud provider’s site, so you don’t have to deal with any initial outlay or upkeep of capital costs. Cloud allows for greater storage capacity, and greater scalability opportunities. All these benefits add up to notable long term financial savings.
GREATER TEAM PRODUCTIVITY
Imagine being able to conduct your business from anywhere in the world. With cloud, you and your staff members have the ability to connect and share information from almost anywhere, on any device. Your team can work from a phone, tablet, desktop or laptop for example, and access it while they are at home, in transit, or on the road. Important documents are also shared instead of emailed, so they are kept more secure and without excessive or unsolicited versions floating around. And as you know, greater team productivity leads to overall better business activity.
REDEPLOYING YOUR RESOURCES
Cloud is not only simple to utilise, it allows you to focus on your core business instead of infrastructure and/or software management. Everything is automated so instead of having to invest in IT support to keep your systems updated and maintained, most applications that utilise the cloud automatically update themselves. This automation helps your business to not only run more efficiently, cloud will save on precious staff resources so they can be redeployed within your business, and their time used more productively.
SEE GREEN
Jealous of the benefits cloud gives its users, such as convenience and cost effectiveness? Here is something else to think about, moving to the cloud is actually better for the environment. Cloud computing uses less electricity as big data centres work towards further reducing their carbon footprints, and as your servers aren't wasting idle energy you will also slash the cost of your electricity bill.
As you can see the cloud offers some great advantages, making it no surprise that many small to medium sized businesses have found the move to cloud an absolute necessity. Adopting cloud is also easier than ever before, leaving you more time to focus on your business. The bottom line is clear - with cloud technology your business bottom line really is much better off.
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