Cloud computing has changed the way we work and conduct business online. It offers benefits that business needs to take advantage of the rapidly changing opportunities in today’s interconnected world. The cloud offers small to medium sized companies the ability to work more efficiently while increasing employee productivity. Simultaneously, the cloud offers significant cost savings and the ability to enhance your business and IT operations.
Saving Money With Cloud Computing
Scalability is only one area where the cloud can save your business money. Because cloud computing is based upon virtualization, adding workstations during peak busy periods is easy, and cheap. When business returns to a normal level, services can be scaled back. Because the cloud is based on a “pay as you go” model, you only pay for the services you actually use. Because it is a virtual environment, adding or subtracting CPU power, storage, ram, or workstations can be accomplished in seconds with the click of a mouse.
Here are some other key areas where the cloud can help your midsize business save money:
• Reduced Labor Costs – By transferring all or part of your IT to the cloud you are turning a large part of your maintenance over to your provider. They will keep applications updated, maintain servers and perform many of the tasks your current IT team spends valuable time performing. This can free employee time for other mission critical functions.
• Faster Time to Value – Instead of the usual weeks or months it can take for purchasing and installing equipment, workstations can be up and running in hours. The cloud offers extremely rapid provisioning of resources.
• Pay-As–You-Go – Because of the cloud’s pay-as-you-go business model businesses can eliminate paying for unused resources, postpone purchases and test solutions before committing, whether it’s storage, email or server space. This can provide tremendous cost savings.
• Less Capital Expenditure – Lower equipment costs as well as the tax benefits from the way depreciation is handled can simplify accounting and save money. Fewer purchases means less money going out and less inventory.
• Lower Real Estate and Energy Costs – If your business relies on a room full of servers that take up space and throw off heat, Moving your IT to the cloud can free up space in your office. Virtualization has a much smaller footprint than a standard data center. By moving to the cloud you can cut down on cooling costs and free up valuable real estate for more productive use!
The key lies in analyzing your IT workloads. You’ve probably spent years deploying resources and tuning your IT environment to fit your company’s specific requirements. And you probably have idle capacity and other inefficiencies you could be addressing. Cloud computing may offer the perfect solution.
It’s most important to really do your research. Break down your needs, function by function, before committing to a full-scale move. Moving even a portion of your capacity to the cloud can offer significant savings. Make sure to consider any regulatory restrictions, proprietary data and application security needs and access requirements before reaching your decision. The bottom line, the cloud is here to stay and if thoughtfully employed, can help you to meet your needs, grow into the future and save some cash along the way!