According to Flexera’s 2020 State of Tech Spend Report, nearly one-third of survey respondents already have workloads in the cloud. And that number is expected to jump to almost half by 2021.Given the efficiency gains and cost saving, the rise in cloud use is understandable. In recent years, we’ve seen cloud being used by organisations across various industries to help manage and optimise all aspects of the business. In this post, we delve into some of the ways cloud can help you make better use of your IT budget.
Cut down on legacy infrastructure
If you’re running legacy infrastructure, you’re probably spending more than you need to, says McKinsey. These costs include everything from maintenance to hiring people with the skills needed to make the most of this technology. This adds complexity to your IT team structure, which ups your costs. By transitioning operations from legacy infrastructure to cloud you’re not only eliminating the need for outdated, specialised skills, you’re also boosting the speed at which your developers can work, which ups efficiency and reduces your IT spend.
Be strategic about investments
One cloud certainly does not fit all. For smaller businesses, simple, subscription-based cloud infrastructure solutions cut down on pricey infrastructure and maintenance costs. For large enterprises, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is attractive because an experienced third-party provider hosts and maintains your core infrastructure, from hardware and software to servers and storage. Cloud needs vary depending on the costs, tech, business and legal requirements, security needs and business growth path of the organisation.
Embrace AI to up efficiency
Customer support requests are on the rise and artificial intelligence (AI) can help bridge the resource gap. Many businesses are using AI chatbots to answer simple questions with ease enabling IT staff to focus their attention on other tasks and more complex customer requests. With customer experience as a competitive advantage, AI-integrated call centres improve call deflection rates, reduce handling times and minimise call centre agent training costs.
Consider collaboration to cut costs
With national lockdowns and social distancing, teams around the globe have had to learn how to collaborate in new ways. Migrating parts of your IT ecosystem to the cloud enables the business to better serve employees. Today, more so than ever, remote teams have been able to work successfully together thanks to video calls, group chats and document collaboration apps. Switching to cloud-based collaboration increases revenue, ups productivity and reduces costs.
Even if you understand the benefits of migrating to the cloud, the process can still be overwhelming; especially because every company will have its own unique needs and considerations. This is why it’s so important to understand what options are available and how each of these can help the organisation improve now and into the future. Need help? Contact us here and we’ll be in touch.