Author: John McMahon

Read time: 5min

How are upstart businesses taking market share away from well-established companies that have ruled your sector for decades? There are many contributing factors, but the most significant in today’s business environment is technology. Venture-backed start-ups across all industries are building their companies by relying on technology as a central pillar and driving force within their business model. Established businesses tend to see technology as an add-on that helps them get their work done – or even a necessary evil.

For established businesses to maintain their position within the marketplace, they must begin with a revamped mindset that views technology decisions as business decisions, not just technical decisions.

This is most evident in the decision to move IT operations into the cloud. The complex technical reasons that a company should invest in cloud-based infrastructure are vastly outweighed by the business reasons.

What are the Most Common Benefits that Forward-Leaning Businesses are Trying to Achieve in a Cloud Environment?

·       Scalability

It’s important for your company to have predictable expenditures when operating within finite budgetary constraints. The cloud allows your CIO to precisely forecast IT expenditures as your business grows and makes forward progress. Alternatively, organizations that have busy or slower seasons are able to scale up or down according to fluctuations in the demand and marketplace for their products and services.

·       Cost-savings

When looking at the ROI for implementing a cloud-based IT environment, you need to consider the lifecycle of your IT assets. For example, in-house IT assets require purchase, maintenance, management, and replacement. Cloud assets have no upfront purchase cost and are continuously managed, maintained, and updated. The other factor that comes into play is the expected increase in efficiency and productivity from cloud assets. When one compares apples to apples, cloud infrastructure comes out the winner in terms of cost-effectiveness.

·       Unified IT Environment

Right now, most organizations considering the move to the cloud are using cloud-based applications and in-house infrastructure. This can lead to speedbumps in internal processes that slow down the workflow to full-on roadblocks that keep you from pursuing your next pro-growth action plan. By moving everything into a cloud environment, the integration of applications, and the automation of manual processes are simplified.

·       Digital Transformation

As mentioned earlier, mature companies that are trying to match wits with their younger, venture-backed competition are realizing they must view technology as a business enabler too. Digital transformation is not something that can be tacked onto a business, but rather, it is how a business views its processes today, and potential tomorrow, based on what current and emerging technologies can do. Because of the unlimited power and capacity of the cloud, it is the perfect place to explore and implement digital transformation strategies.

·       Flexibility

In 1965, Gordon Moore – former CEO and Co-founder of Intel – made the observation that because the number of transistors in microprocessors seems to double each year, the available computing power doubles each year as well. Moore’s Law (as his observation has been dubbed) has proven true in the rapid pace of technology growth since that day. The cloud allows you the flexibility needed to take advantage of rapid technology changes and expansion almost in real-time. (More on Moore’s Law in our next article, “Hidden Cloud Benefits - What the Marketing Departments of Cloud Technology Companies Forget to Tell You.”   What is the Cloud?

·       Speed of Deployment for New Products and Services

Beating your competitor to market may mean the difference between gaining the majority of market share or eating the crumbs left by the guy who got there first. In 1802, Humphrey Davy came up with the first electric light, the Electric Arc Lamp. This was almost 77 years before Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879. Between Davy and Edison, there were at least four other recorded inventors that had their version of an electric light source. So why did we all use Edison’s lightbulbs until the recent adoption of halogen and LED bulbs? Because Edison was the first to bring a commercially viable bulb to market. That’s what the cloud does for you. Need a satellite office set up in Seattle tomorrow? – It can be done. Need the infrastructure to support a product rollout by next Thursday? – Not a problem.

·       Business Continuity

It’s not a stretch to say that if you don’t have geo-redundant cloud backups and cloud-based workflow assets, you don’t really have business continuity. Unfortunately, many companies are reliant upon an in-house server to save the day when things go bad. But storms like Katrina, pandemics like COVID-19, and ransomware attacks like WannaCry demonstrate that an in-house server isn’t up to the task of protecting confidential client information, proprietary data, and critical workflows.

·       Backup and Disaster Recovery

Closely related to and a key component of a robust business continuity strategy is Backup and Disaster Recovery. Protecting your data from theft, fire, flood, storms, power outages, and human error is essential; and the cloud is the secure, efficient way to meet that goal. Automatic, verifiable, monitored backups of data into a cloud environment help you meet industry standards and compliance requirements.