There are many lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chief among them is the importance of cloud computing for business success. When the pandemic struck, the early adopters of cloud computing were best positioned to shift to remote work, digitally transform their operations, and keep revenue flowing through the pandemic.
As we hopefully shift to a new post-pandemic period, the strategic value of cloud computing is only growing in importance. Now more than ever, organizations should double down on their cloud computing investments to reap the benefits of superior cloud economics, improved employee productivity, and more effective remote work and collaboration.
In this blog post, we will explore the three key reasons investing in cloud computing is a strategic imperative for companies of all sizes.
1. Superior Cloud Economics
There is a very simple reason why cloud computing has taken the world by storm. In short, it is because cloud computing is more cost-effective.
One can break the cloud computing world into three distinct categories. Private clouds are hardware and software resources hosted in a data center and owned and operated by a single organization. Public clouds are the opposite, where computing resources are shared by numerous companies and purchased as a service from a single supplier, usually on a fractional and monthly basis.
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Examples of public cloud services are Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. The third category of cloud computing is software-as-a-service (SaaS), which involves the delivery of a software application as a monthly service, usually through a web browser interface. The SaaS revolution has really been enabled to a large degree by advancements in cloud computing.
Examples of SaaS applications include products like Salesforce, Quickbooks, or Workday.
Cloud computing is more cost-effective since companies can shift technology investments from capital expenditures into operating expenses. Historically, technology investment was risky. It required up-front capital investment in real estate, hardware, software, networking, and the people to run the infrastructure.
Cloud computing has changed all that.
Now, massive corporations like Microsoft and Amazon take on the upfront capital investment risk of building huge data centers, while companies of all sizes can purchase computing resources in bite-sized amounts, ramping up and down resources as needed. Since cloud computing is elastic and scalable, there are no fixed costs and waste is minimized.
SaaS applications also help companies save money and do more with less.
Corporate software licensing used to be a big, upfront investment. Buying the wrong software tool for your team was sometimes a career-ending move for technology professionals. With SaaS tools, on the other hand, experimentation is now the name of the game. SaaS tools let team leaders or department heads quickly buy a small number of seats and experiment with new software tools.
If the tool is a success, widespread deployment can follow. If the test is a flop, one can simply cancel your monthly subscription. The superior economics of SaaS licensing models have unleashed a wave of innovation in how companies leverage software and digitally transform their operations.
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2. Remote Work & Improved Productivity
Cloud computing and SaaS applications have also made the remote work movement possible.
First, SaaS applications are easy to license and deploy. When support resources are scarce and employees are scattered throughout the globe, ease of deployment and support is essential. Mainstream productivity and collaboration applications, like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, have become essential software bundles.
Today, these applications can be accessed through a traditional web browser, even for applications like word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. Web-based delivery of apps, along with cloud-based file collaboration tools like OneDrive, SharePoint, and Google Drive, make it so employees can work anytime and anywhere.
Moreover, cloud-based network management tools, like those delivered by Cisco Meraki, make it possible for companies to build networks all over the globe and centrally manage and monitor them from a single, cloud-based console.
Cloud computing has given a huge boost to workplace collaboration.
Real-time chat and video applications like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Zoom make it so highly distributed teams and contributors can collaborate in real-time and with the intimacy of face-to-face communications.
Behind the elegance and ease-of-use of every Zoom call, is a massive cloud computing infrastructure making everything possible.
3. Better Business Continuity & Reliability
Lastly, cloud computing enables companies to scale and grow, while leveraging the world-class infrastructure of companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Just a decade ago, only large companies could afford world-class data center infrastructure. Small companies just had no cost-effective alternatives. That’s why cloud computing has in many ways levelled the playing field, allowing even the smallest companies to tap into the scale, power, and reliability of the cloud infrastructures of the likes of Microsoft and Amazon.
When you are running on the same infrastructure as some of the largest companies in the world, everything is more reliable and predictable. While it is important to note that companies should still backup cloud environments, public cloud and SaaS services have ushered in a new standard for business continuity and reliability.
Leveraging the Importance of Cloud Computing for Your Business
At NENS, we help companies of all sizes tap into the cloud computing revolution.
Whether you are migrating to the cloud or looking for ways to better integrate and secure your cloud environments, NENS is your preferred partner for cloud computing success.