Cloud adoption is increasingly being driven by IT as a strategy, rather than operational demands. The inherent flexibility, availability and security of Cloud services make them attractive to many organisations, but cost savings remain the primary motivator for the majority of organisations.
Set against a backdrop of mobility, collaboration and user-centric technology; IT and communications departments are under even greater pressure to deliver more for less. As austerity hits, budgets come under pressure, emphasis is placed on driving down the total cost of ownership (TCO) of technology.
The cost benefits of moving IT and communications to the Cloud can be felt throughout your organisation. Some, like the reduction in upfront investment in on-premise hardware are obvious. Others, like the savings on call costs from the use of IP communications and the reduction in employee expenses as a result of collaboration tools, offer a longer term benefit.
Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) and rapidly growing organisations are, perhaps, best placed to realise immediate cost benefits from Cloud adoption, as it eliminates the need for substantial up-front capital investment; and allows them to scale at a pace that matches their needs.
In addition to the reduction in capital investment, Cloud (or hosted) technologies offer a wide range of direct and in-direct cost advantages:
- IP telephony services can sometimes include unlimited local and national call bundles, to both landlines and mobiles
- Using a hosted communications system provides access to advanced functionality, without having to physically purchase hardware
- Phone calls between employees are made on-network and incur no costs
- Software-as-a-Service includes free updates and as a result, you are always up to date, and IT doesn’t need to spend valuable time on low-skilled maintenance
- A smaller on-premise IT estate requires less physical space and requires less expenditure on power and cooling
- Enabling remote and mobile workers to collaborate with each other and operate from anywhere reduces the need for business travel
- Less hardware means less maintenance and management – a quarter of all businesses are able to reduce their headcount as a result of migrating services to the Cloud
- Built-in resilience and failover from your service provider means you don’t have to maintain additional on-premise hardware in the event of failure