How cloud computing helps your business reduce costs and increase profits

The ultimate goal of enterprises that are considering upgrading their IT capabilities by moving to cloud services is to save enterprise funds and further increase profits so they can increase headcount, raise wages, and innovate in key businesses.

Whether to move your enterprise's it to cloud computing is a tough decision to make. After all, this means a change in the overall purchase and delivery of IT products and services. However, many companies are actively deploying cloud computing. According to a recent survey by CDW of 1,242 IT professionals, more than half of the companies have moved to cloud computing and started to take on multiple functions. According to another study sponsored by Rackspace, most companies have realized that using cloud computing can help companies save costs and increase profits.

"The findings also show how companies are moving to cloud computing and the benefits of cloud computing." "said John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace. "The bottom line is that cloud computing can save companies money and improve their profitability." ”

Recently, Rackspace Company, with Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne, sponsored a survey of 1300 companies in the UK and the US that moved to cloud computing between December 2012 and January 2013.

The study found that 88% of cloud users were concerned about the cost savings, while 56% per cent thought cloud services could help them increase profits. In addition, 60% of respondents said cloud computing had reduced their IT team's need to maintain infrastructure, giving them more time to focus on strategy and innovation. In fact, 62% of companies have saved costs and made business investments, increased headcount, increased wages and promoted product innovation.

Engates said: "This study shows that it is because of the adoption of cloud computing, the company's key business has had a significant impact." Particularly interesting is the fact that nearly half of all companies, in the context of a persistently low economic environment, have actually increased profits by adopting cloud computing and have grown their key businesses. This includes increased recruitment of new employees, investment in employee wage growth, and further innovation in the business. ”

Shift cloud storage and collaborative applications

The services or applications that the enterprise migrates to cloud computing depend to a large extent on the size of the enterprise and the industry it belongs to, according to CDW's research report. For example, storage services are 40% of small businesses and 35% of midsize enterprises are primarily selected for service projects. For large enterprises and the federal government, the main choice of service options is conferencing services and collaborative applications (40% and 39%, respectively). Businesses also migrate to cloud services to enjoy communications, office and production suites, business process applications and computing capabilities.

However, reducing operating costs is just one of the benefits of cloud computing. In fact, according to a CDW survey of cloud users, 55% of companies are deploying or maintaining cloud computing to provide efficiency, 49% are to increase employee mobility, 32% are to improve innovation, and 31% are to enable current IT staff to engage in other projects. and lower operating costs ranked fifth, accounting for only 25% of the proportion.

Return on investment in cloud computing

"When you start to calculate the ROI of your cloud computing, you need to consider the application mix of your business and the factors associated with the specific computing needs," says Paul Keluotuo, an enterprise solution engineer at Rackspace.

First, Keluotuo says, your ROI analysis should be broadly considered, including the unit cost per computing capacity, the need to redesign applications running in a cloud environment, and tradeoffs between time and intangible assets.

"Migrating to cloud services adds new elements to the equation of return on investment, not just capital projects but also factors such as acquisitions, software licensing and asset depreciation." "Keluotuo said. For example, users only need to pay for the cost of the cloud platform resources they use, and through the interface of the cloud service provider, you can clearly see the relevant cost details. Another primary cost benefit of the economic scale of cloud computing is the rapid expansion and retreat of the scale through some investment.

"Cloud computing can bring a significant return on investment, saving energy, software licensing and administrative costs, and allowing staff to quickly innovate new ideas." "In any sense, migrating to cloud computing is a transformative investment," Keluotuo added. ”

Set up a cloud road map

CDW provides the following recommendations to the enterprise, hoping to provide some reference in the process of building your business's cloud roadmap:

Work with your business's investors and stakeholders to consider and analyze issues related to profitability and cost, and then choose a cloud strategy that is consistent with your enterprise's IT service model.

Launch the first application that does not pose a major risk to your business, and this application will not involve your business's critical business, not complexity (for example, storage, unified communications, and Office efficiency applications).

Leverage your users ' familiarity with consumer cloud services to maximize cloud computing success.

Independent software vendors will be able to bring new features to cloud applications and to market them faster.

Start planning now to fully understand the "service costs" of each application within your enterprise, which will help determine the ROI of the public cloud solution.

When signing a contract with a cloud provider, carefully agree to establish and implement the relevant service level agreements and safety standards.

Consult with software licensing experts to clarify and resolve related issues that affect your organization's migration to the cloud.

(Responsible editor: Fumingli)