Making the leap to cloud computing is saving companies money on a daily basis
Moving a business’s IT infrastructure to the cloud is a big undertaking, but it’s one that can have immense benefits. 90% of companies these days are on the cloud in some capacity, whether it’s their entire infrastructure or just one application. By 2021, it’s estimated that cloud data centers will process 94% of workloads around the world.
Cloud services are the way of the future for business, from small startups to large government entities. However, many businesses haven’t made the jump yet.
Maybe they are perfectly happy with their IT functions. Maybe the business’s focus is on something else more pertinent right now, and the change needs to be delayed. Or perhaps switching just seems too overwhelming to management, both financially and logistically.
The financial element of this transition is a common concern. Is the business putting off migrating to a cloud service because of the cost? It’s often assumed that the budget required to handle the migration of data, setup, testing, and maintenance is astronomical, or at least out of range for many small to mid-size businesses. But that simply isn’t the case.
To turn that around, how much money is not moving to the cloud costing? Let’s explore some of the key benefits of a cloud-managed service and their long-term financial savings.
Cost benefits of moving to a cloud-managed service
Scalability
As a business grows, its IT systems need to grow with it. With a localized infrastructure, businesses have to predict their needs for storage, server, and licenses months in advance or be left high and dry when the time comes. They are also left to hope that their IT staff will be available and ready to meet that need. If those predictions are incorrect, the company could end up with preventable issues and costs.
A cloud service allows businesses to pay for the infrastructure they actually use and expand instantly when they need to do so. Companies can adjust for the expected and the unexpected instantly.
Maintenance
A large portion of an IT team’s time is dedicated to regular database backups, software upgrades, and general maintenance of current systems. That is time a business pays for so it can stay up and running. This doesn’t include additional resources needed when emergencies arise or systems go down.
A cloud provider will take care of most of this maintenance automatically. This means that either the company can greatly reduce its IT payroll or refocus staff to work on other tasks like development and testing. Either way, it saves money in the long run by having fewer hardware concerns in-house.
Flexibility
A major asset of cloud services is the ability to access them from anywhere. This is a huge benefit for businesses with remote employees in various locations or businesses looking to transition to a more remote structure.
You might be saying to yourself, “A distributed workplace is never happening here.” But don’t rule it out: A study by Upwork predicts that 73% of companies will have distributed teams by 2028.
To do this in a non-cloud way would require multiple data centers and regional infrastructure sites that are expensive and difficult to maintain. There is also no guarantee that employees would have flawless access to the system and their applications.
Cloud services allow teams to work faster, having access to the tools they need, the minute they need them. Reducing the overhead cuts potential downtime and wasted resources.
Security
Creating, updating, and maintaining a disaster recovery plan for internal servers and storage is extremely costly and dependent on the skills of an IT team. A security breach or system failure can lead to leaked information or complete data loss.
Cloud services are responsible for securing all of their systems, including a business’s data. A full transition to the cloud means data won’t be stored on local devices, resulting in a reduced threat to security. With a cloud service, all data flows through enterprise-level encryption that is managed independently of local devices, so a stolen laptop doesn’t pose nearly the same threat it would with on-site hardware.
Moving business forward with a cloud service
Companies that want to focus more on the product and less on the underlying IT infrastructure should certainly consider a cloud service model. It could greatly improve productivity by focusing more energy on development and operations. There’s no need to worry about buying servers at a moment’s notice to handle demand or maintaining a disaster plan if the application goes down. Moving is a win for a company’s long-term financial status all around.
CloudHesive provides a wide variety of services to help businesses with cloud-based solutions from consultation to implementation and ongoing management. No matter what part of the process your business is in, CloudHesive can help make the transition much easier.
To start the process or simply to learn more about how the move could help your business specifically, see how we have helped other companies or watch our video on cloud migration. For more info, you can contact us today at 800-860-2040 or through the online contact form.
