Australia and New Zealand’s mid-market businesses are well-placed to reap the rewards of cloud computing.
There has been an uptake of flexible working initiatives as well as high-levels of mobile device penetration and the emergence of new technological capabilities. These factors have shaped an environment that delivers huge cost savings, which can be channelled into profit, growth, and business success.
In this new world, what can your organisation do differently – regardless of its size or turnover – to convert the potential of cloud into profitability, or savings for a rainy day?
Don’t get lost in migration
The days of spending valuable time and money re-purposing desktops and applications to perform against a new IT environment should now be history. Instead, cloud-hosted solutions such as virtualisation technologies, provide support for a full ranges of devices – including laptops, tablets, smartphones – to seamlessly work together.
Using hosted-desktops and application environments will mean your business no longer needs to be reliant upon costly data centres. Consequently, businesses can focus resources on expanding and improving existing capabilities to deliver improved services.
Recent Deloitte research shows less than a third of Australia’s mid-market, public sector businesses are confident in their organisations’ ability to respond to digital trends. These findings indicate more must be done to strengthen the skill-sets of workforces across the nation. Therefore training – financed by achieved cost savings – should be explored as an appropriate measure to ensuring digital readiness.
Expanding new horizons
As more businesses recognise the benefits of cloud-based solutions, there has been an uptake of activity-based working (ABW) models and a decline in fixed-desk environments. A local business tapping into this trend is Victoria-based homebuilder Porter Davis. Since adopting new working practices – specifically virtual desktops – the business has been able to streamline six regional offices to one central location, lower overheads, and reduce its carbon footprint.
Similarly, as workforces are encouraged to go beyond legacy working spaces – often stocked with expensive, non-essential equipment – employees are free to work in the way they want, contributing to an increase in productivity and satisfaction.
Through the cloud and hosted environments, your employees are able to work in a way complimenting their lifestyles. To ensure your cloud platform is tailored for your individual needs, work with specialist partners who understand the industry. By doing so, you can rapidly reap the rewards.
Size matters
As the mid-market across Australia and New Zealand innovates with technology, expansion of workforces will be a natural consequence. Unlike hardware-reliant data centres, cloud-based solutions provide advanced management and scalability, reacting to the ever-evolving demands of workforce growth, flexibility and geography.
Ultimately, with cloud-based solutions you are afforded the freedom to expand at a scale suiting your needs. In contrast, physical data centre expansions can often go under-used. In doing so, resources can be consumed and expensed as needed.
Making the move
When embarking upon your cloud journey, be sure to consider the requirements of your organisation and explore the options available to you. Of course, the strategy supporting the goals of one organisation may not always be the right one for yours.
As such, look to work with specialist partners who will support you on your transformation by identifying the right solutions and platforms you need to generate significant savings, and fulfil your business objectives enabling you to succeed in the digital economy.
About the author
Safi Obeidullah is the Director of Technical Services at Citrix ANZ.
