How Will Switching to the Cloud Save Us Money?
The cloud has quickly become part of the daily life of businesses. In addition to connecting our rapidly changing business world, the cloud has given new improvements in productivity, flexibility and performance.
Many who support transitioning business operations and processes to the cloud cite cost savings as the main selling point. By hiring IT staff to maintain the functionality of the cloud instead of spending funds on the installation of hardware and software infrastructure, many businesses anticipate savings in that area. But that’s only the beginning of the savings the cloud yields. Outsourcing the technological infrastructure to the cloud will enable IT staff to spend more time on strategic innovation.
CFO Research in collaboration with Google surveyed senior finance executives at 310 large U.S. companies to examine their views on the business value of cloud computing. These companies represented a wide variety of industries, number of employees and annual revenue.
Financial executives who responded to the survey had adopted cloud computing and confirmed that moving to the cloud yielded cost savings. In the survey, a majority of respondents said “their actual savings met or exceeded their expectations in a variety of cost categories” such as cost savings, improved IT flexibilities, improved collaboration and greater employee productivity.
Most financial executives have similar views on the potential of cloud-based systems to reduce IT maintenance costs. 62% of respondents said the total transition to the cloud could reduce such costs by up to 20% and an additional 21% expected even greater cost savings.
When it comes to estimating the cloud’s potential to reduce merger and acquisition integration costs, financial executives are more caution in their estimations. However, 77% of respondents agreed that cloud computing would reduce the amount of time required to integrate a typical acquisition or business combination.
Transitioning to a cloud computing solution will not only save your business in up-front hardware and software expenses, but it will also allow your IT team to spend their valuable time and resources on additional cost savings activities such as finding more productivity, collaboration and improving flexibility.
If you’re trying to decide whether the cloud is a good fit for your organization, we’d love to chat.
