Cloud computing is an upcoming trend and the future of many large, medium and small business enterprises. The research and survey conducted by Gartner Inc, exhibits that globally, cloud computing sales has gone up by 21 percent in the year 2010 and it is likely to triple by 2013. The research reports show that earlier all the enterprises, small, medium and large, were business driven.
However, in the last couple of years there is a drastic and significant change in the pattern of cloud adoption. The current trend is that businesses irrespective of their sizes are merging IT with all their business decisions. Many tech gurus/pundits are calling the year 2011 the “Year of the Cloud” and they have a few compelling reasons for that. Here we take a look at why cloud computing is a compelling option and how its power as a business tool can help your business gain an edge over your competitors.
Access data/application anytime anywhere
In cloud computing, applications required for your business are not stored in your local server. It is located in a remote server and can be accessed from anywhere at anytime, if you have an Internet connection. Therefore, even if on-premise apps server crashes your data is safe and sound and the functioning of the business is not affected.
Up-front Cost Reduction
The price of deploying CRM, ERP, PM and other applications on the premises is expensive. Instead, if you have these applications in the cloud, it will be more cost effective. Not only that, when you have your applications in the cloud you will be able to scale your business operations more easily. Check out the Apptivo’s consultant suite to understand the power of cloud computing.
Up to Date Software
Did you know that your applications can be updated via cloud? If your small business is using applications on the cloud, your cloud software provider can add new functionalities whenever they are available. When you are using cloud applications the cloud software provider converts the user feedback into new functionality almost immediately. This is one of the advantages of cloud computing from the business standpoint.
IT People turn into In-house Strategist
IT department will take the role of a strategist because they have to decide which applications will go to the Cloud and which will remain as on-premise applications. They will also have to make the decision to either integrate the two applications or not. IT staff will have to come out of their conventional way of functioning and start finding the best combinations of the applications. They would also have to chart out strategies to integrate, adopt, and share data between the various departments.
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Flexibility in Scaling your Business
Cloud computing not only helps in speedy implementation of applications when your business grows, but also allows you to cut down on the size of your deployment in case your business shrinks. The advantage of using cloud is that you do not need to pay for the resources you have not used. That is cloud, computing vendors allow the flexibility of payments according to the usage of resources.
Cloud is Environmentally Friendly and Economical
Cloud not only reduces the costs of running on-premise applications/data center but also saves a lot of energy and space. Studies conducted by WSP Environment and Energy show that cloud computing data centers produce 95% less carbon on average compared to the in-house data centers. Again, when you want to retire your old application servers you need to find a way to recycle the servers in an environmental friendly way. If you are using cloud, it becomes the responsibility of the service providers.
