How far should you integrate business operations with the cloud?
Let’s face it, if you can think of it, there’s a cloud solution for it. This is both a blessing and a curse for technology leaders tasked with increasing performance and efficiency through savvy technology investments. Integrating useful cloud applications into business operations is gaining traction with many multi-national corporations for its scalability, flexibility, cost savings and enhanced security benefits.
But how far should businesses go in embracing the cloud? According to Accenture, 86% of companies have increased the scope of their cloud initiatives since 2020 and that, on average, 50% of workloads are committed to the public cloud. Clearly migrating a significant proportion of your business operations to the cloud is a popular choice.
What is the benefit of being 100% cloud-based?
Transitioning to a fully cloud-based infrastructure can offer unparalleled agility and efficiency. By leveraging cloud services for all aspects of operations, businesses can eliminate the need for on-premises hardware and infrastructure maintenance.
This not only streamlines IT management but also enables seamless scalability to accommodate fluctuating demands.
However, there are varying degrees of cloud integration for business operations. Even though 71% of organizations expect their cloud spend to increase, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing because there are lots of different forms of cloud integration, applications, and ways to transform your business.
What are some examples of cloud transformation?
Transforming business operations using the cloud depends on lots of different factors like size, market, demand, location, etc.
How are the different industries integrating the cloud with their business operations strategically?
- Retail: Point-of-sale (POS) systems have been migrated to the cloud to streamline transactions, manage inventory more effectively, and gain insights into customer behavior for personalized marketing strategies.
- Healthcare: Cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) systems centralize patient information, improve data accessibility for healthcare professionals, and enhance collaboration among care teams.
- Financial services: Cloud computing is a very successful way to oversee and facilitate risk management, fraud detection, customer relationship management (CRM), and comply with regulatory requirements.
- Manufacturing: Cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are popular in manufacturing for optimizing production processes, managing supply chain operations, and enhancing visibility into inventory levels and demand forecasting.
- Education: Tele-teaching has become more popular and successful due to cloud-based learning management systems (LMS) facilitating remote learning and providing access to educational resources from anywhere, anytime.
- Transportation and logistics: Cloud solutions for route optimization, fleet management, and real-time tracking of shipments are very popular.
- Government: Cloud computing for digital transformation initiatives is revolutionizing many government services, including citizen services, data analytics, and disaster recovery.
What is cloud migration? How does it affect a company?
Cloud migration refers to the process of moving data, applications, and other business elements from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. This transition can have a positive impact on a company's operations, unlocking new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and growth.
However, cloud migration doesn’t happen overnight.
There are different considerations to take into account when integrating cloud applications into your existing tech stack, including considering how it will impact your wider network(s).
These include:
- Moving towards Internet-based networks to access the cloud
- Using specific cloud network services in addition to a core WAN system
- Tools to be able to see the health of your network and cloud applications
- How you manage application performance and user experience
- Connecting your network to different cloud providers
- Increasing network requirements, like increasing bandwidth or latency
- Scaling your network so it can support increased cloud adoption
Your network really is the key to integrating business operations with the cloud, see our list of tools you need to ensure you have total visibility and control into the success of your cloud strategies and integrations.
Cloud is a huge topic for enterprises and truly, the sky’s the limit! With so many options available to you to improve performance, productivity, efficiency, cost savings, and so much more, wouldn’t it be great if you could see what your peers are investing in?
Available now: Enterprise Horizons 2024
We have just launched this year’s Enterprise Horizons campaign and the IDC InfoBrief, Enterprise Horizons 2024: Technology Leaders’ Priorities on their Digital Business Journey based on the data collected in the IDC Technology Leaders Survey, commissioned by Expereo.
If you would like to know what 650 other leaders in your position have prioritized for their cloud strategies, you can download it here.
Or if you’re ready to build the resilient, intelligent network foundation to support cloud strategies, get in touch with us.
Our expert team is always on hand to discuss your connectivity challenges. No matter what your current network setup looks like, we’ll put you on the path to strategic success.