The financial benefits of moving to the cloud – Full report

Companies should always look for ways in which to improve efficiency and to reduce unnecessary expenditure even in times of relative prosperity.  In times when a healthy cash flow is less readily available, as in the current economic downturn, these measures become of even greater importance.  The failure to take the correct steps to increase efficiency and make real savings can even cause a business to fail.  This is one reason why many companies are now moving to cloud computing to fulfill their data infrastructure needs.

A brief introduction to cloud computing

Cloud computing is more down to earth than the name might suggest.  The essential point of cloud computing is to take away the immediate, tangible difficulties inherent in managing a company’s data on the company’s premises, and to instead handle these through a remote, outsourced company.  In effect, the difficulties and infrastructure are hidden from view, as if in a cloud.

What is not hidden in a cloud, however, are the potential financial benefits that a company can gain from cloud computing. Costs can be saved, efficiencies can be found, and business priorities can be streamlined, all by the one decision to move data into a cloud computing system.

Direct financial benefits of moving to the cloud

For companies that operate their own data infrastructure on their own premises, the associated costs can easily multiply to the point of being almost unmanageable.  First of all, the actual hardware costs of the infrastructure can be high to begin with, and can increase over time as updates and additions are required.  Secondly, the software related to maintaining data on the hardware also has costs associated, and these can also aggregate over time, with updates, bug fixes, and additional security measure.  Thirdly, specialised computing requires highly-skilled staff, and the cost of the IT department staff can be quite high for companies whose primary business is in another sector.  However, with cloud computing, all these aspects are consolidated into one single payment, and the headaches associated with the necessary updates and upgrades are also removed.  On the bottom line of the accounts, this can have a very positive impact.

Indirect financial benefits of moving to the cloud

Benefits like these, both financial and otherwise, of moving to a system of cloud ERP (cloud enterprise resource planning) are direct and obvious, but there are also significantly positive effects that result from a knock-on from the various consequences of the decision.  After the computing expertise has been outsourced, the enterprise is free to tackle its core business with greater flexibility and with improved focus.  Without the distractions caused by having to eliminate IT difficulties, management can free more time to look at ways of keeping customers satisfied and growing the business.

Using the cloud is not just a reduction of costs on the expenditure side; it is also a potential addition of revenue on the income side.  For this reason, more and more businesses are joining the data technology revolution and are enjoying the financial advantage of moving their data assets to a secure, trouble-free cloud computing system.