Businesses are rapidly moving to cloud computing because of a number of compelling benefits. Some of the key benefits driving this shift include:
Improved profitability and margins
A global survey of 1,300 C-suite executives by Wipro FullStride Cloud Services found that a strategic shift to digital solutions leads to increased revenue and profitability. In particular, SaaS companies experienced the highest margins, while other sectors also saw significant improvements. For example, finance executives reported revenue increases of up to 15% and a 4% increase in profitability. In addition, Deloitte found that small and medium-sized businesses using cloud computing generated 21% more profit and grew 26% faster.
Increased revenue streams
The survey highlighted that cloud migration can unlock new revenue opportunities, potentially increasing revenue growth by up to 11.2% per year. However, at least 60% of an organization’s workload needs to be cloud-based to achieve significant financial benefits.
Lower start-up costs
Cloud computing significantly reduces initial start-up costs, including setup and maintenance costs. According to an OpsRamp survey, 94% of IT professionals confirmed this benefit. Accenture also reported that moving workloads to the public cloud can result in total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of 30-40%. In addition, operating in the cloud shifts costs from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx), freeing up resources for operational and growth needs.
Improved security
Security is a leading benefit of cloud computing, cited by 60% of C-suite executives, surpassing benefits such as cost savings, scalability, ease of maintenance and speed. The cloud's support for automation helps to mitigate human error, a significant threat to security.
Improved business resilience
Cloud-based solutions support business resilience practices such as remote working, adapting to new business models, and disaster recovery. Aberdeen found that cloud-enabled organizations could resolve disaster recovery issues in just 2.1 hours, compared to 8 hours for those without cloud services.
Greater agility
Of the 137 IT executives surveyed, 115 planned to migrate more workloads to the cloud over the next two years. Of these, 62% were looking for increased agility and scalability, while 47% were looking for better cost management through elastic resource provisioning.
These benefits explain the rapid adoption of cloud computing across industries as organizations seek to leverage the cloud to improve performance and competitiveness.
