Moving To The Cloud Doesn't Just Save Money

Over the last few years, cloud computing has become one of the most widely used technological innovations for businesses and tech-enthusiasts alike. And why not? Cloud services give users access to their information anywhere and everywhere they happen to be, lowering costs and increasing productivity for many of the more tech-savvy companies today.

However, the study suggests that lower costs aren’t the sole highlight of what cloud computing can do for you: it could as well increase your research.

The study, conducted at the London School of Economics and Political Science, consists of survey data from 1,035 businesses and IT executives and in-depth interviews with more than 35 service providers. The researchers found that the cloud services could be so tailor-fit to a company’s needs that employees once bogged down with old processes were now free to think more creatively. According to the study, "With a cloud model, companies can think about processes at a level in other words more detailed and personalized to their individual needs, nevertheless the solution will not need to be customized in older, prohibitively expensive ways."

Indeed, the process of experimentation used to cost a medium-sized business millions, however with cloud services is quick and low-risk. "One of the key ways that cloud computing supports operational and technological technology is by moving an organization more briskly through the experimental or prototyping stages," they elaborate. "With traditional IT models, a decision to prototype a new system as a rule involves the procurement and installation of expensive hardware, with the associated checks and delays that conventional purchasing requires. Cloud provisioning, in return, can be implemented rapidly and at low cost."

In other words, it allows you to move more quickly with your innovative ideas. Changing what used to equate to an entire IT infrastructure, to accommodate new ideas for your business was so risky that companies often held on to technology so then past its prime. Old IT infrastructures have hidden costs for maintenance and lost efficiency.

The cloud is a bit of a nebulous concept

The cloud is a bit of a nebulous concept. During the popularity of the term "cloud" has truly grown just recently, the basic concepts aren’t near as innovative and scary as many business leaders may think. Indeed we’ve all been using cloud-based email for years now without much trouble. Some of us can remember that awkward time earlier embracing cloud-based email. Messages downloaded on one machine could only be read there. Email accounts were, for all intents and purposes, linked forever to a single desktop computer.

Now imagine the upshift in efficiency that we all see reading out work emails on our phones, again on our iPads, and again back at the desktop; syncing address books and calendars. As we move the rest of our business lives onto this platform, we can expect to become more innovative. And as we innovate we can expect to see our business grow.