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How Cutting-Edge Cloud Solutions Can Help Streamline Business Operations

How Cutting-Edge Cloud Solutions Can Help Streamline Business Operations
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Cloud computing has brought about an immense pool of remotely accessible information resources that are fundamentally altering modern business operations. This new set of digital cloud solutions are driving growth, innovation and competition across market sectors.
Organizations that utilize the cloud aren’t bound to geographical limits. They’re also able to leverage flexible pay-as-you-go pricing models to trim excess costs from their infrastructure investments. Actually, adopting the cloud offers unmatched benefits in a few areas:
  • Easily scalable storage
  • Rapid adaptation to changing infrastructure demands
  • Advanced analytical capabilities
  • Seamless collaboration

The power and scalability of the cloud sparked widespread integration, making it a standard tool for an increasing number of businesses. In fact, the efficiency increases brought on by cloud computing are quickly making organization-wide adoption a competitive necessity.

 

Business Operations — Before Cloud Solutions

Organizations that haven’t yet moved to the cloud are beginning to fall behind in a variety of ways. By failing to adapt to the changing digital landscape, organizations miss the advancements in efficiency, data security, scalability, speed and communication that their competitors gain through cloud computing.

Adhering to outdated modes of operation presents several digital bottlenecks that can negatively impact productivity. To paint the whole picture of legacy IT infrastructure’s drawbacks, let’s deconstruct business operations before the cloud.
  • Slower Application Deployment: The latest and most advanced tools and services that facilitate application deployment exist on the cloud. Features like automated testing help streamline the development process. Organizations operating without these modern tools aren’t able to reach the same level of efficiency and will soon fall behind.
  • Stagnation in Scalability: Operating on-premise servers can stifle growth by placing a hard limit on an organization’s potential computing capacity. Businesses using local servers don’t have the agility to quickly adapt to increasing demand because their processing power is finite. Improving their processing power requires expensive and time-consuming infrastructure updates that can ultimately hinder growth.
  • Reduced Data Security and Privacy: The common refrain of those hesitating to adopt cloud solutions is concern about data security. However, the reality is that legacy systems lack modern security features and updates, which can leave them exposed to threats. What’s more, limited authentication and access controls reduce data privacy stored on legacy systems.

How Cloud Solutions Help Streamline Business Operations

Considering the increasingly apparent drawbacks of legacy systems, the reality is migrating to the cloud is becoming a competitive necessity for businesses across the board. The rapid adoption of technological improvements often requires a preexisting integration with modern infrastructure. So, adopting the cloud is necessary not only to keep up with current innovations but also to prepare for future advancements.

Businesses that haven’t yet adopted cloud solutions are already one step behind. Although, the speed of improvement that’s occurring within the cloud means this gap will likely expand. We may even reach the point where organizations with legacy systems are left in the dust completely.

The cloud now hosts some of the buzziest applications in tech, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics. This means accessing the shifting modes of how current organizations operate requires upgrading IT infrastructure to the cloud.

However, to truly understand how migrating to the cloud can improve business productivity, organizations need an in-depth understanding of how the technology improves digital operations. With this in mind, let’s explore the major benefits cloud computing offers to users, starting with its application to dispersed workforces. After all, this is one of the most fundamental transformations modern organizations have made in recent years.

Improved Collaboration

By centralizing business data and applications, users can access all the important tools and information they need from anywhere. This means teams are able to collaborate with the same level of efficiency and communication remotely as in person. For instance, individual team members can access and share files or data with their coworkers in real time. This rapid collaborative capacity actually smooths the friction that exists in in-person workflows. Plus, it reduces the number of time-consuming meetings it takes to get tasks done.

Cloud solutions such as unified communications as a service (UCaaS) tools can tighten organizational collaboration by hosting a variety of connection methods in the same place. Conferences, audio and video calls, messaging and file sharing can all happen from the same application. It also keeps a historical record of communication that can support current team efforts.
 

Speed

The cloud offers an unmatched level of speed and agility for organizations. Developers can integrate an expansive range of pre-built services into applications, offering supreme digital flexibility. Leveraging authentication services, caching systems, messaging queues and databases can significantly speed up the development process.

The speed with which a company is able to bring its applications to market often makes all the difference. Cloud solutions such as Infrastructure as Product (IaP) can create fully automated infrastructure based on common scenarios. As a result, development teams can spend more time constructing their application. This significantly cuts down the time it takes to launch a product while maintaining the highest quality throughout the process.

What’s more, by automating tasks like testing, developers can instead focus their efforts on project sophistication. This ensures the team has the time it needs to construct an advanced application while maintaining enough process efficiency to keep the project timeline tight.
Cloud solutions also allow companies to expand their global reach by deploying applications across regions. Plus, cloud computing supports agile development methodologies, enabling businesses to iterate and experiment with their applications quickly. This allows companies to rapidly adapt to changing market dynamics, which positions them to be the first to serve market demands.
 

Scalability and Flexibility

The ability to scale digital infrastructure up or down doesn’t just help businesses experiencing spikes in demand. It also ensures costs never exceed usage. Cloud-based operations allow companies to increase or decrease key factors such as storage, computing power or network capacity based on their current needs. Companies can do all this without any upfront infrastructure investments. As a result, it’s simple, quick and easy to obtain additional computing power.

The performance increases that rapid scalability brings can be felt both internally and externally:
  • Reliable digital services support company employees even during their busiest times of the year.
  • On the other end, customers experience a smoother sales funnel without potential snags caused by overburdened infrastructure.
This can provide businesses with a significant competitive edge over other companies. Those that can’t accommodate fluctuations in demand either have to pay exorbitant infrastructure costs for legacy systems year-round or simply miss out on sales and other opportunities.

In addition, load balancing spreads the website traffic across multiple servers to maintain the highest levels of performance during spikes. Other processes like auto-scaling monitor usage and remove or add computing resources based on how much is necessary at any given moment.

On top of the performance-enhancing benefits of scalability, there are also reductions in maintenance costs. This is because businesses that leverage cloud solutions don’t have to manage on-premise hardware. Instead, companies can funnel these funds into more productive avenues to aid growth and promote the need to scale.
The ability to exactly meet the needs of an organization without requiring costly infrastructure upgrades provides a level of business flexibility that legacy systems simply cannot match.
 

Better Data Security and Privacy

The initial concern that many business leaders have when considering transitioning from on-premises infrastructure to cloud solutions is data privacy and security. The idea of organizational data being accessible from anywhere naturally brings up fears of online hackers. However, the truth is that cloud computing offers a more robust security environment than possible on most businesses’ legacy systems.

Cloud service providers are continuously investing in the latest security management infrastructure. This enables businesses to place access controls around their sensitive data. When it comes down to it, a single organization’s IT team cannot be solely dedicated to infrastructure security to the same extent that cloud providers can.

Cloud providers continuously monitor for security threats so they can act immediately if a potential threat is detected. This allows the provider to stop potential cyberattacks in their tracks and mitigate the damage of possible data breaches.

What’s more, cloud providers also protect their users’ privacy by operating their data centers with the highest levels of security. This is in sharp contrast to on-site hardware that could potentially be accessed by unauthorized personnel. In addition, cloud providers have invested in protective technology such as backup cooling, internet, hardware and power to mitigate the potential losses caused by equipment failures or natural disasters. Not to mention the fact that providers consistently employ some of the most sought-after cloud security experts to protect their infrastructure.

All these privacy and security measures stack up to make the cloud an all-around more secure environment for sensitive data than most outdated systems. Not only does this highly protected environment lessen the need for multiple backups, but it also maintains regulatory compliance through these same extensive security measures.
 

Sourcing Advanced Cloud Solutions

The benefits of the cloud allow users to far outpace competitors that are continuing to hinge their operations on increasingly outdated technology. The flexibility, cost-efficacy, collaboration tools, speed, data security and scalability make cloud solutions paramount not just for today. They’re also necessary to establish a digital business structure that will be able to quickly integrate future innovations.

The choice isn’t whether businesses should adopt cloud computing — rather, it’s how to get started. In this regard, it’s best for businesses to consult with an expert who can create a plan that aligns with their core objectives.

The experienced software engineering teams at Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP) work with companies to develop bespoke cloud applications and infrastructure that scales with demand. We build long-term relationships with our clients to support their digital transformation from end to end. This provides unbeatable assistance through some of the inevitable complexities that arise during the transition to the cloud.

Plus, by offering both delivery and transformation services such as cloud applications and public cloud advisory services, GAP serves as a comprehensive solution for companies undergoing a digital transformation. Reach out today to learn how GAP can help your company scale smarter with cloud solutions.