Cloud computing has enabled companies to continue operating seamlessly throughout an unprecedented crisis that could have easily brought business processes and productivity to a halt.

It would be easy to generalise that technology has helped businesses to carry on working during the coronavirus outbreak.  But delving deeper into what exactly has been the key to enabling people to work from home and keep business-critical services going, there is one constant : Cloud Computing.

While the likes of Zoom and Microsoft Teams are gaining traction with consumers and businesses alike, the reason millions of people can use this tech simultaneously is because of the benefits of cloud computing.

These benefits are well documented: cloud infrastructure enables companies to scale up and down with flexibility so they can cope with volatile conditions like those currently being experienced.

That being said, Cloud Computing isn’t as prevalent in Scotland as you would think.  As highlighted by Raconteur, not all businesses are fully utilising cloud software.  In the infographic, cloud prevalence in Scotland is at 18% whereas London is sitting at 52%.

It is hard to understand why a lot of businesses still haven’t moved to the cloud when you have so many benefits:

 

Reduce time to delivery

• No capital expenditure upfront: the requirement to buy hardware upfront is removed in most cases.  By removing the need to commit to large CapEx purchases, you also simplify your business case and procurement effort, and allow delivery teams to be more flexible.
• Low-risk proof-of-concepts: cloud services reduce risk by enabling your delivery teams to build Proof-of-Concepts (PoC) for new services quickly and with a much smaller budgetary commitment.

 

Increase Organisational Agility

• Reduce organisational overheads: cloud services remove the requirement to build, maintain and operate on=-premise systems.  In doing so, they also reduce the need to source and build full internal operational teams.
• Scale rapidly: well-architected cloud services can be scaled quickly to meet any level of demand.

Continuous Improvement

• Improved approach: cloud adoption forces you to review and improve your behaviours, processes and operating practices when building and delivering services.  This disruption requires you to learn new skills and improve.  It opens your organisation to the opportunity to adopt a mindset of continuous innovation.

 

Evergreen IT

• Reducing the infrastructure burden: migrating to cloud services and away from server-based, on-premise workloads can mitigate your infrastructure burden.
• Eradicating technical debt: cloud services prevent your organisation from accruing substantial technical debt in the form of legacy services and operating systems.

Disaster Recovery

• Cloud platforms are based on highly resilient architecture.  In most cases, providers operate with an SLA (service level agreement) of 99.9%, rising to 99.99999999999% (eleven nines!) for some services.

Do you want to learn more about cloud software and how it can benefit your business?  Download our free whitepaper with tips for evaluating business software.