Loud, proud and in the cloud

Over the past five years or so, the cloud has been an incredibly disruptive force within the global IT industry—owing to the various advantageous and value-adding qualities it holds. This is, of course, accompanied by the cloud’s greater cost saving element in providing its service, not only for commercial entities, but general households as well.

Not sure what the cloud is? It’s essentially a metaphor used for the storing, saving and access of data over the internet.

Cloud solution provision is in a state of boom, and it seems that you’d have to have your head in the clouds—so to speak—to not view it as a major business opportunity. It greatly enhances the probability of achieving that near impossible state of perpetual profit generation—if adapted correctly and competitively. Globally, it seems many share this sentiment, and here’s why:

Statistics provided by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semi-Annual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide show the extreme growth of worldwide expenditure on cloud services and infrastructure. It’s estimated that global expenditure will reach $122.5 billion in 2017, an effusive increase of 24.4% from the previous year. What makes this even more astonishing is that by 2020, IDC forecasts that this figure will have amplified to $203.4 billion worldwide. Serving as a proxy to cloud adoption, it is evident that more and more entities are realizing the value potential cloud solutions hold.

But why this sudden and aggressive adoption of cloud solutions? What worth does it hold that makes it so attractive? Why is it so disruptive, and at the same time, how does it feel so sustainable? Below are three chief reasons:

One: Cost Effectiveness

Cloud computing is especially beneficial to SMEs aiming to keep up with the global technological trend. As there are no more effusive costs in terms of hardware maintenance and upgrades, aggregate capital costs are driven down—allowing the business to focus more on the service or product, without the burden of high IT costs.

Two: Accessibility

Aside from being more cost-efficient, another major advantage of cloud computing is heightened accessibility. Greater accessibility leads to easier dissemination of important information to key stakeholders. It may lead to more accurate and faster decision making, and the fact that one can access essential information from multiple locations results in greater business flexibility. Basically, overall business process functionality is improved.

Three: Collaboration

In conjunction with the aforementioned, cloud computing improves business productivity. Reason being is that all internal (and possibly external) teams have access to a wealth of business information. Having corporate-wide transparency leads to greater communication, which leads to better teamwork, which leads to better product and service delivery.

Of course, there any many more great qualities of cloud computing, such as flexibility and the fact that it is much more environmentally friendly. It also holds many perceived risks, such as unauthorized access to corporate data, theft of IP, compliance risks, security risks (especially at the cloud provider), proneness to malicious activity et cetera. However, as this global transition to the cloud continues, so too will the efforts to enhance the cloud offering and minimize any associated risks—making our unified journey into the cloud as easy as a hot air balloon soars through the atmosphere.

Still not sure if the cloud is the right move for your business? Check out Sage Intelligence Product Owner, Jessica Mack’s blog explaining how business reporting in the Cloud with Sage Intelligence for Accounting Reporting can change the way you do business.