Cloud Computing: 10 Benefits for Businesses
Everything you – and the new-age businesses that have all been set up to serve you – are operating on the cloud.
It could be a web-based tool you use, or it could be an app that you just can’t get enough. The transformation has been happening, and we are all a part of it. Physical environments for computing have now given way to a burgeoning list of services and products that live on the cloud. Never before in history have we been so green and have access to computing power that’s accessible at low cost.
The cloud computing that we now have access to is cheaper, more flexible, enhances collaboration, supports mobility, protects data, facilitates data transfer, and allows individuals and businesses to be empowered more than ever.
The growth is steady. But how apparent are the benefits of cloud computing for businesses?
1. No Death of Options for Businesses
For businesses, cloud computing is just about getting to a point when it’d become indispensable. In a recent 5th Annual State of the Cloud Survey on the latest cloud computing trends by RightScale, more than 71% of the respondent companies clarified that they are using hybrid cloud setup. About 18% of the respondents use the public cloud only and another 6% use private cloud.
Enterprise usage on the cloud has been on the rise too. The number of enterprises running more than 1000 virtual machines in the public cloud has increase from 13% to 17%. Meanwhile, the private cloud usage (for every 1000 virtual machine installs) has gone up from 22% to 31%.
2. Costs, and It’s Always About Costs
If there’s just one benefit you could take off this list and make it your own, it’s going to be this: moving to the cloud saves costs.
For businesses, there’s nothing more telling than that.
A Rackspace survey — in conjunction with Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne — finds that 88% of cloud users have proof of cost savings. Another 56% of cloud users report boosted profits.
About 62% of businesses that save money thanks to cloud computing reinvest savings back into their respective businesses.
3. Staying Competitive
It’s all about speed today. How fast does your website load? How quickly do you serve customers? What’s the turnaround time for your product or service? How quickly can you beat your competition to dust?
Cloud computing helps your business get a competitive edge. Due to built-in scale and possibilities of expansion when you need to, cloud computing gives your business the infrastructure it needs at the pace it demands. According to Sky High Networks, companies that take to the cloud experienced a 20.66% improvement in time to market, 18.80% improvement in process efficiency.
4. The Right Foundation for Applications
The cloud computing model is the perfect foundation for all businesses – small, medium, and large – for the next wave of applications. With options such as the multi-cloud environment, the case only gets stronger.
This also paves the path for the next wave of cloud computing (the first wave was from network/computing/infrastructure perspective) services and products such as data analytics, micro support, omni-channel presence, and more.
5. Storage Has Just Gone to the Cloud
Forget acres of data centers and the ridiculous cost of owning, running, and maintaining them. Cloud storage has already gone mainstream and companies no longer have to invest huge sums of capital (that can be better used elsewhere) for storage needs.
The cloud storage market is expected to be US $65.41 billion by 2020 and that’s because cloud storage now comes at a bargain – with a lot more advantages than any one business can afford to have.
6. Cloud Computing as Foundation for IoT
This year is marked as the momentum year for IoT. It’s now almost delivery time for this technology to show promise.
Gartner estimates that IoT devices will increase by 30% in the year 2017 and businesses will be the first to ride the wave.
The internet, the devices that connect over the cloud, and the entire gamut of services and products that can be stitched together to provide various benefits for businesses.
7. Better Business Agility
Business agility is one of the strongest reasons why businesses move to the cloud.
Computer resources, infrastructural setup, storage, and processing power are now available to shorten IT project cycles. Likewise, businesses now have faster product delivery cycles, rapid prototyping abilities, and faster getting to market timing.
For instance, data analytics projects can now be completed in just a few weeks instead of months or years. Virtual machines can be started and switched off remotely.
8. Economies of Scale
The traditional approach to IT does not lend itself to scale, at least not without a huge layout of capital. Businesses can focus on better business practices, serving customers faster, aligning business strategy better instead of focusing on technological nitty-gritty.
Yet, businesses still retain process efficiency, use people for better purposes than to “fix issues” and also because cloud service vendors and providers do a better job to utilize computing power, physical resources, and energy consumption.
9. Innovation Is Just Clicks Away
It’s mind boggling how easy it is to think up new business models today, all thanks to cloud computing. Because many cloud services are readily available and computing hardware of any scale can deployed in minutes, many standalone business models are already possible just by combining a few of these services.
New value propositions, innovative business models, or even new process flows are all entirely possible today. Innovation only requires an idea and a plan for execution without the huge costs or headaches associated with executing new ideas.
10. Scale and Zero-Hassle Operations
Many cloud vendors come with SLAs and robust service models to help businesses effectively have both “scale” and zero-hassle operations. Standardized services reduce issues, defects, and fails.
Since cloud computing is all about deploying new software and/or hardware with a few clicks, an entire host of pre-built server images, applications, application stacks, and predefined workflows are already possible for businesses.
What do you think are a few benefits of the cloud? Please let us know in the comments below.
