Leveraging the Power of Cloud Computing for Success
Enhancing Business Strategy: Leveraging the Power of Cloud Computing for Success
Cloud computing can be a strategic decision for your business, as long as the manager knows how to take advantage of each of its advantages according to the profile of your needs. Knowing your technology better will help a lot when it comes to ensuring that your company gets the best from cloud computing.
Do you want to understand how the cloud helps with business strategy? Check out the benefits that this technology will bring to your company and understand why it will be essential to beat the competition!
Optimize IT Investments
Ensuring that your business strategy is focused on success means choosing technologies that provide space for this. IT is an essential investment for any company — which makes optimizing spending in this area a huge differentiator. Your competitors may spend more than you on technology, but that doesn’t mean they spend better.
Making good investments in technology means making decisions that will increase your team’s productivity and simplify your life. Cloud computing is no longer synonymous with storage and has come to mean a series of tools that reduce the need to invest in hardware to access enormous processing powers.
With an internet connection and a browser, your company can obtain powerful applications and allow customers and employees to access important information from anywhere, anytime.
Focus is what defines how the cloud helps your business strategy
Differentiating your brand, services, and products will only be possible when you discover your focus. It’s easy to understand why it works this way. Companies whose main objective is to compete on price must have cost optimization as a recurring task, while those who prioritize innovation can pass these values on more easily to the consumer.
Understanding what type of strategy your business is looking for will be fundamental in defining what role the cloud will play from then on.
This means that the various positive features of cloud computing can be considered in favor of your business. Have you been thinking about how it would work in the case of a company that prioritizes innovation? This type of development requires infrastructure to test solutions with storage flexibility that do not compromise the entire research budget. The cloud can also meet all these demands.
Creativity when putting your advantages into action will be crucial to success. Discover some of them below.
All power to the manager
The storage solutions and applications that you can configure through the cloud have well-resolved interfaces that offer powerful management tools. A wide variety of metrics are available to the manager, who controls who access each type of information.
Flexibility and scalability
Flexibility means being able to add users, size your space, and manage the network infrastructure in your company through intuitive control panels. Increasing your disk space is simple and accessing the essentials of your computing is possible from anywhere, as long as there is internet.
Cost-benefit
The cost-benefit of cloud computing helps your company implement the solutions it needs at its own pace, as you only pay for the resources you use and the time you use them.
Cloud Computing Service Types
Three main types of service can be offered by cloud computing:
- Software as a Service (SaaS) – offering cloud-based software applications with access via login and password over the internet.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides cloud infrastructure for installing consumer solutions or applications.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – complete computing infrastructure offered in the cloud, such as storage, processing, and network communication.
Examples of Cloud Computing: SAAS, IAAS and PAAS
Before choosing which type of cloud computing solution is perfect for your business, the company must understand how the cloud works. Each type of platform has unique characteristics, which help the application of this type of technology in different types of environments.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS is a business model in which companies provide access to the basic resources of a server, which the end customer can contract, but often requires the assistance of a specialist partner (the Cloud Broker). It may include — but is not limited to — contracting network services, computing resources, or data storage.
This is a scenario in which the company will have high control over computing resources, as it will manage the infrastructure.
In this sense, high flexibility will manifest itself in the ease with which new resources can be hired, making internal processes more efficient.
Solutions of this type, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS, are ideal for companies looking to eliminate concerns and risks related to physical IT infrastructure.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS is a cloud computing service that facilitates the administration of contracted resources, allowing the company and its technology department to focus on the goals of its services.
It eliminates the need for IT managers to worry about managing hardware infrastructures. This way, the company can count on a simpler and more practical cloud services platform.
Typically, PaaS is aimed at software development companies, which intend to create an environment for running their systems in the cloud, selling some SaaS service or solution.
This is the case with sales platforms and development tools. This type of initiative is aimed at advanced users, who will create their tools for their needs.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service (or just SaaS) is one of the most popular ways to use cloud computing services. In this case, companies or users can license more efficient, secure, and scalable tools.
This is the case, for example, with Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365. In these solutions, which are easy to hire and have little risk for the end customer, people can run complete office application suites directly in the browser, having a user experience similar to that of a desktop application.
As it is software for daily use, this type of platform can be used in personal and corporate environments.
For the company, SaaS eliminates concerns about distributing patches, new functions, and systems management. All these activities are carried out by the service provider, which is committed to providing the best possible user experience on different devices.
Making processes more efficient
It doesn’t matter your business model or the size of your company. Cloud computing will always have a solution that can be integrated into your operational routines. Management tools, virtual machines, and even remote storage services can be hired in search of a more efficient and dynamic company.
With cloud computing, the company will have all its areas optimized. Professionals will be able to have more mobility by having the possibility of accessing their resources anywhere with an internet connection.
Sectors that work with software development can employ virtual machines as a way of making the testing environment closer to the user’s reality. Together, these options increase the company’s competitiveness, increasing its innovation potential and revenues.
Advantages of Cloud Computing for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)
Cloud computing isn’t just for big companies, you know? One of the great advantages of the cloud is that it is accessible to small and medium-sized companies and has simple usability for those who are not in the area.
Considering the enormous benefits of using this tool, we will learn about the advantages of cloud computing for SMEs.
Services offered in the Cloud
For years, email has essentially been a cloud service (perhaps the first one), especially after Gmail was launched in 2004, offering a lot of storage space, as, until then, companies needed local programs to store their data. messages.
Email customers have all the necessary resources to make the most of the tool, and can even hire an email address through services such as Google Apps. The main benefit of using your email in the cloud is being able to access it from anywhere and on any platform.
File Backup
Backup copies have always been a problem for SMEs, as they require a constant backup routine, but, with cloud computing, you can keep copies on secure servers easily and with advantages!
All you need to do is hire a cloud backup service, like AWS, and set it up (which is usually quite simple). A backup service will monitor the company’s files and, whenever any changes are made, a copy will be sent to a server in the cloud. If any problems occur with your files, simply restore that copy.
Online and Synchronized Files
Services with Google Drive allow your files to be synchronized with the cloud and for you (or any other authorized person) to access from anywhere in the world, via the internet and applications.
Another great use of cloud storage services is that they synchronize files between all configured computers, so you will have the same copy of all files on your computers, without causing a mess with several different versions on each one.
Collaborative Documents
Office, through Office 365, is increasingly collaborative and integrated with the cloud. Through it, you can save your documents directly in the cloud and edit them simultaneously with your team, seeing changes in real-time and chatting via chat.
Office also has applications that run directly in the browser, to edit your documents even where the suite is not installed.
Google pioneered these functions with its Google Drive. The big difference with Drive is that it works directly in the browser and still works without the internet.
Additionally, you can use it integrated with Google Apps to better manage service users in your organization.
Synchronized Projects
Cloud computing makes managing your company’s projects much easier. Through tools like Trello, you have access to a range of tools to manage your project tasks, delegate them among your team, and monitor development, giving feedback in real-time.
The most interesting thing is that Trello has a super friendly and intuitive interface, so you and your team won’t have any difficulties using it. It has a free plan with the basic features and, if you need more, the paid plans are very economical.
Safety Precautions
All of these cloud services bring great advantages to SMEs, from cost reduction to data integrity, but you need to hire reliable services and suppliers and always use strong passwords to guarantee the security of your company.