This is the decade of the cloud. Cloud is the most transformational force shaping business today. It breaks down geographic barriers and allows every small business to address a much larger market and become a multinational.
Because the Cloud offers far more than simply reducing costs. It’s also about using internet and data centre infrastructure to improve business and sales processes. And it’s not just about where you store your data, but about enabling that data from anywhere. We’ve seen the beginnings of this with retail but it’s going to transform every business model.
Disrupting the old order
Building Cloud-based sales and business processes makes small businesses incredibly disruptive and presents a great opportunity to disrupt large multinationals as they continue to write off their large, slow, in-premise infrastructure.
Disruption in any market, whether it be the deregulation of the telecommunications market or the advent of the internet and social media, spurs on innovation and business models, and always shortly after, a great market for resellers.
For many businesses, Cloud will be a decision that they’re not going to buy their own infrastructure or host their own website. They’re outsourcing the headache of managing much of their own IT.
Hardware is still critical
Of course Cloud doesn’t mean an end to hardware. Security and privacy issues mean that businesses may choose not to host critical customer data in the Cloud, even if processes are kept there. Hybrid solutions will be a popular option.
It’s my view that if there is encouragement for innovation and the Cloud really does transform business models then the market will be driven to invest in infrastructure to support the Cloud. Infrastructure to pre-empt the technology is dangerous. It is much better to take an approach of supporting businesses that will make this transformation happen.
Need for education and encouragement
Despite prominent investment, adoption of cloud services remains sluggish and tentative in many sectors. IDC estimates that the new service delivery model only accounts for ten per cent of IT spend.
Despite the clear advantages, for some companies, operating in traditional ways for decades, Cloud is going to be a leap of faith. When you’ve invested in infrastructure for years, you have to tear out traditional mindsets along with legacy hardware.
Transitioning to Cloud
Servcorp’s own experience with Cloud has been as both a provider of Cloud services to SMBs, which we’ve been doing even before the term was coined, and as a customer of Cloud providers, as we are moving all our own back office into the Cloud. The Cloud is a natural fit for us as we manage businesses across 23 countries and 130 locations.
The transition to Cloud has at times been difficult but our overwhelming view is that it will only benefit our business.
Adopting the Cloud will enable you to make your business more efficient and do much more with a much larger market for much less cost. The Cloud is allowing us to transform our business and the way we run it, and the way we work. It’s delivering affordability, scalability and flexibility, which is why we’re passionate that other companies should also realise these advantages.
