Top 10 Reasons to Move to the Cloud Now and Why You Shouldn't Delay Any Longer Cloud computing is quickly becoming the norm, with ev...
Top 10 Reasons to Move to the Cloud Now and Why You Shouldn't Delay Any Longer
Cloud computing is quickly becoming the norm, with everyone from huge government agencies like the CIA, DOD, and NSA to native cloud titans like Netflix and Hulu to small businesses and everything in between using it. And there's a good reason for this: cloud computing has clear advantages over computing on-site that have been studied and written about. We've made a list of the top 10 most often mentioned benefits of cloud computing, along with reasons why you shouldn't wait any longer to move to the cloud.
What is Cloud Computing
But first, let's talk a bit about what we mean when we say "cloud computing." Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, is what most people mean when they talk about cloud computing. SaaS is just a way of getting software to your computer that lets you access your data from any device with an internet connection and a web browser. The software company hosts and maintains the servers, databases, and code that make up an application, and you pay for it based on how much you use it or by signing up for a subscription. There are other parts of cloud computing, like Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), but for our purposes, we'll focus mostly on SaaS.
The future of 20 century is Cloud
According to Forbes, cloud computing is critical to our society's future. It's become so common that some in the industry believe we'll stop using the term "cloud computing" altogether; it'll simply become the way IT is done. According to IDC, 85% of companies with fewer than 100 employees use cloud solutions, with an average of 3.9 solutions per organization. These figures will continue to rise as companies grasp the benefits of the cloud. If you've been putting off your organization's shift to the cloud because you were waiting for broader acceptability, the wait is over.
Advantages.Of Cloud Computing
People often say that one of the best things about SaaS applications over on-premise deployments is that they save money. These cost savings are due to a number of things, including:
1. Reduced purchase expenses
2, Cheaper hardware
3. Requires fewer IT resources; 4. Is less expensive to manage
4, Less expensive to manage
Gartner's research and studies show that using the cloud can save companies a lot of money—14% on average. According to a survey by CompTIA, companies move to the cloud mainly to save money. Want to know how much you could save? Amazon has a "total cost of ownership" (TCO) calculator that can help you figure out how much money you could save by moving to the cloud.
2. increased teamwork
Teams work better together when they can easily access, edit, and share documents in real time. The cloud makes this kind of cooperation easier because documents can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, and the whole process of working together can be seen.
3. Flexible work environments
Better communication with customers, suppliers, and partners makes it possible to come up with new products and services.
Helps businesses grow; lets workers move around.
cuts down on operating costs. More agility and flexibility
"Operational agility" is a major reason why CIOs and IT directors want to use the cloud. This makes sense, since agility and flexibility can give companies a real competitive edge. When we talk about flexibility and agility, we mean the ability to respond to changes in the market and the environment quickly and at a low cost. Cloud-based solutions are flexible by nature, so companies can scale up or down based on demand without having to add to or get rid of their existing infrastructure. Some of the business benefits of agility that have been mentioned are:
1. Scalability on demand: You can upgrade or downgrade your current plan whenever you need to.
2. Availability of data—more ways to get to it, even at peak times
3. Quick recovery from disasters and better protection against data loss
4. Better protection
'On average, a lost laptop will cost you more than $50,000. You did read that correctly. This value is based on the cost of replacement, detection, forensics, data breach, lost intellectual property costs, lost productivity, and legal, consulting, and regulatory fees. Out of all of these parts, the data breach is responsible for 80% of the cost. In fact, the $50k estimate could be way too low for many companies. Read about how a stolen laptop cost a company $2.5 million in fines for not following the rules.
Cloud computing can make it so that valuable and sensitive data doesn't have to be kept on the laptops, tablets, or even phones of employees. Instead, the data is accessed securely over the internet and kept on the secure servers of your vendor. There are even ways to delete the data on a stolen laptop from the cloud.
5. Work from anywhere
One of the most compelling and frequently mentioned advantages of cloud computing is the capability for you and your team to access critical business apps from anywhere. According to a Forbes article, telecommuting has a variety of advantages for employers, including:
Increased productivity: According to this study, 2/3 of managers said remote workers have increased their productivity.
Morale is higher, absenteeism is lower, and stress levels are lower
Costs dropped—operational costs dropped as a result of fewer offices.
6. Minimal IT infrastructure
7. Constantly up-to-date
When a company hosts software in the cloud, updates are usually done automatically, so users always have the most up-to-date version. This has many benefits, such as:
1. Get rid of the time it takes to update server software and desktop devices
2. Protection from dangers and weak spots
3. Use the newest features and functions as often as possible.
4. Take advantage of the constant improvements to speed and safety
5. Stay in line with regulations that change
6. Make sure it works with other, newer programs.
7. Backup and recovery from a disaster
Strong backup and disaster recovery services are one of the most important business reasons to move to the cloud. Why? Because bad things do happen. Gartner did a survey in 2017 and found that 80% of the people who took part had to use an IT disaster recovery plan in the last two years. More and more, businesses are relying on the cloud to keep them connected to their most important business data. In the same Gartner survey, 23% of people said that cloud-based recovery was their top choice.
9. Document access and control
As the need for business users to work together grows, so does the need for tight document control and easy access from anywhere. Cloud-based solutions for document access and control store documents in a central location so that anyone with the right security permissions can access, view, share, and edit content. Some of the big names in this market may be familiar to you: Dropbox, Google, and Adobe all have products. But many cloud-based applications let you store, link and share documents that are related to records in the app. Some of the benefits of centralizing document management are:
10. Predictable, budgetary pricing
In a big change from how companies usually buy on-premise software, where they buy a license that lasts forever, SaaS applications are usually sold as subscriptions. Companies pay a monthly subscription fee that can change based on the number of users and/or the features they want.
With a fixed fee, companies can better plan how much they will spend on technology overall. Also, a SaaS solution is usually not considered an investment, but rather an operating expense. This can have big tax benefits, but you should talk to your tax advisor about it first. Deloitte provides a good explanation of the differences in this paper.