It’s no secret that DotModus has proven to be a reliable partner during our clients’ digital transformation journey. We have many case studies on our website and blog detailing how we’ve supported multiple journeys to the Cloud. While cloud computing has become increasingly widespread, not every company has made the move yet. The reasons for this could be reservations about costs or uncertainty regarding trustworthiness. Whatever the reason may be, it’s understandable to be a little wary of change - especially if your legacy system seems to work just fine. At DotModus, we believe “just fine” isn’t enough if you want to remain relevant and successful in any industry. To demonstrate why we believe this, we’ve compiled a list of some of the reasons you should move to the cloud.
The cloud reduces long term costs
Many of us are looking for ways to reduce and optimise how we spend our money. There are 2 main ways cloud adoption drives cost-saving initiatives:
- Hardware Costs
On-premise hardware is expensive especially if your organisation is growing. Investing in hardware that will likely be outdated within a few years doesn’t make long-term sense. Not only is keeping up with in-house hardware innovation costly, but it also requires office space - a very valuable resource.
With cloud computing, hardware is the sole responsibility of the vendor. You are no longer responsible for ensuring that the hardware is kept at an appropriate temperature - which further reduces your electricity bill. If you’re like us and care about the environment, Google is leading the way with data centres that are more environmentally friendly.
2. Forget about maintenance
Gone are the days of spending money on maintenance (and labour) costs. Since the vendor is responsible for hardware, they too are responsible for ensuring that they are safe, secure and properly maintained. Because the burden of maintenance is on the vendors, their customers’ downtime is often exponentially reduced.
Built-in scalability
Being prepared for unexpected changes in growth is critical when considering how your organisation stores data. Service providers make scaling your package - up or down - very easily. This goes hand-in-hand with your ability to constantly monitor and optimise costs. With in-house hardware, you pay for everything you have (including additional servers or storage). With service providers like Google, you only pay for what you use.
Guaranteed availability
Service providers ensure that downtime is minimal and that data loss will never be an issue again. Your organisation won’t be responsible for creating a complicated backup plan for things that may or may not happen. Thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong and how you could consistently prevent the worst from happening takes a lot of effort and time.
With the cloud, all you need is an internet connection and you’ll be able to access your data. Who wouldn’t want peace of mind that ensuring nothing happens to your data if disaster strikes is a top priority for service providers?
Guaranteed data safety and security
Reliability goes hand-in-hand with security when it comes to the cloud. We can confidently assure you that major service providers like Google do not lie when they say their infrastructure is secure-by-design with built-in protection. Google encrypts data by default (both in transit and at rest); this ensures that the data is only accessible to specific people. You can read more about Google’s security policy here.
Make your organisation flexible
One lesson organisations have learnt since 2020 is that work can be flexible. When your data is stored remotely, there is no need for the extra effort it takes to remotely access in-house servers. Keep in mind that you will always be able to control who accesses what data with advanced built-in security tools.
Improve collaboration with cloud-based tools
I cannot stress enough how much easier it is to work with my colleagues using Google Workspace. I have experienced the frustration of sending Word documents back and forth, the pain associated with how incredibly difficult formatting can be, as well as the many saved documents labelled: Final V1, Final Final V1.1, Real Final, Real Final (1) until your folders are littered with different versions of the same document.
With Google Docs, you create one document that you can work on with specific people (and block access to everyone else) for each new piece of work. Edits are tracked and you can restore previous versions if you need to. You can easily track who made edits and what they edited without the often confusing Compare tool.
Additionally, your documents are autosaved to the cloud and will always be available and safe - if you lose your device, your sensitive information won’t be available (the Google Admin Console lets you block devices associated with your account, immediately signing you out).
Innovation reimagined
The market is volatile and what may have worked for your business in the past may not work for you now. You can better keep up with changes by reducing the complexity of how your business operates. Improving agility lets you develop new business services and mobile applications quicker than before.
The cloud also lets stakeholders share resources and have access to many of the cloud’s self-service capabilities. Specifically, employees have the ability to almost instantly provision their own resources at a scale that meets their specific requirements. By making the process faster and easier, one person is able to complete a task that previously would require multiple people weeks or months to complete.
While this list is not comprehensive, it includes some of the main benefits you will experience when you move to the cloud. What we wish to have demonstrated is that the benefits aren’t limited to costs but extend to business operations and staying competitive. If you are interested in finding out more about how DotModus can accelerate your journey to the cloud - including providing you with a cloud versus traditional on-premise cost comparison, you can contact us here.
