With the technological advances that have been made in recent years, now more than ever, it is crucial for businesses to utilise technology to remain ahead of the curve. The current economic situation, all the uncertainty over Brexit and the weakening of sterling is also putting growing pressure on many businesses to reduce and keep operating costs as low as possible.
In light of these facts, an increasing number of companies are looking to the cloud to significantly reduce their overhead expenditure.
A recent survey has seen 82% of the companies who made the move to cloud computing save money (among many other benefits). Here are some of the key drivers why:
1. No capital hardware costs or infrastructure outlay
Cloud computing cuts out the high cost of purchasing server hardware. You simply pay as you go and enjoy a subscription-based model that’s kind to your cash flow.
There is no infrastructure outlay for new cloud based IT projects, no high fees to an IT consultancy to design infrastructure and install software at the start of the project.
2. No software upgrade costs
One of the ongoing costs to a business is the perpetual upgrade cycle. Companies are often forced to upgrade their existing software, to keep compatibility with their desktop operating system, meet new security compatibility requirements, or because the vendor removes support from old versions. Many companies find their focus inevitably ends up on keeping systems operational leaving little time left to maximize the new functionality in the software.
The beauty of cloud computing is the suppliers apply regular software updates themselves so your IT team don't have to spend any time or money upgrading your applications. Plus, your IT Team can now focus 100% of their time on harnessing the benefits of new functionality.
3. Reduced IT support and maintenance costs
In today’s world, in light of cyber attacks on Talk Talk and many others, any sensible business has to devote a proportion of the IT budget to cyber security. With the cloud, the vendor takes responsibility for cyber security – and what’s more, they are better at it.
The cloud reduces the need for larger on-site IT teams to support your applications, as all technical support is provided by the software vendor. There is also less requirement for ‘top of the range’ computers, as the bulk of cloud computing doesn’t actually happen on a device itself: A users £400 tablet can access your cloud accounts just as quickly as a £2,000 premium laptop can.
Cloud computing also uses less electricity, as you no longer need to run your own servers. This reduced need for physical on-site hardware can have an additional benefit; savings in floor space. This may enable you to utilize this space more efficiently or even downsize your premises to cut costs even further.
4. Elastic IT power and size
Cloud-based services are ideal for businesses with growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands. If your needs increase it’s easy to scale up your cloud capacity, drawing on the service’s remote servers. Likewise, if you need to scale down again, the flexibility is integrated into the service. This level of agility can give businesses using cloud computing a real advantage over competitors – it’s not surprising that CIOs and IT Directors rank ‘operational agility’ as a top driver for cloud adoption.
5. No need for un-utilised DR sites and backup storage
Since the virtual server is hardware independent, the operating system, applications, patches and data can be safely and accurately transferred from one data centre to a second data centre without the burden of reloading each component of the server. This can dramatically reduce recovery times compared to conventional (non-virtualized) disaster recovery approaches, where servers need to be loaded with the OS and application software and patched to the last configuration used in production before the data can be restored.
When introduced with the cost-effectiveness of online backup between data centres, tape backup no longer makes sense in the cloud. The cost-effectiveness and recovery speed of online, offsite backup makes it difficult to justify tape backup.
The cloud makes cold site disaster recovery antiquated. With cloud computing, warm site disaster recovery becomes a very cost-effective option where backups of critical servers can be spun up in minutes on a shared or private cloud host platform.
“Cloud is an irresistible force, only time is the variable” – Oracle CEO
Throughout the next five years, a 44% annual growth in workloads for the cloud versus an 8.9% growth for ‘on premise’ computing workloads is expected. Basically what these figures mean is if you’re not on board, you’re already behind.
For most companies, moving to the cloud is not something that happens overnight, it’s a gradual journey. Businesses undertaking the transformation do and should take a phased approach. Moving a selected aspect of the business onto the cloud to sit alongside their existing ‘on-premise’ applications: a hybrid approach.
Software Vendors like Oracle have understood that the flexibility of deployment holds the key to the cloud transition. Providing the flexibility to adopt public, private and hybrid cloud models to suit the unique needs of each business. In fact very few software vendors can offer such a level of flexibility and even fewer can leverage their own hardware and database technology to optimize performance.
So where’s the best place to start the cloud journey? One of the recommended approaches is to consider your planning and budgeting EPM processes. Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service removes the barriers to adoption of on-premise applications and makes it much easier for businesses of any size to deploy a world-class planning and budgeting solution in a matter of weeks.
Why not start realising the financial benefits of the cloud for your business by taking your EPM solution to the cloud today.