The Cloud Adoption Movement:
It’s already here – Is your business part of it?
First post in a new series about the advantages, risks and trends about moving your technology to the Cloud
By SingerLewak’s Business Risk and Technology Services team member, Rick Mark
_________________________________________________________________________________
First of all, yes it’s a movement, and it’s gaining a lot of ground very quickly. Surely you’ve seen and heard and read the billions of words being forced on you every day about “the Cloud”. How can you not know what cloud is, why to use cloud, and when to use it?
Although the migration to Cloud-based services and platforms is getting a lot of press, the actual move to the Cloud is really much slower. The greater acceptance of Cloud has resulted from years of many business’s software and networks services migrating to the Cloud without any catastrophically large security breaches, outages or data loss. The pattern generally shows the Cloud provides reliability, security, and the nimbleness to a business’ benefit. In the next few years you can expect to see much more Cloud adoption by businesses of all sizes, only without all the press. It will become standard. Computing will be very much Cloud-based and completely different from the traditional network server architectures of the past 20 years, in 5-7 years.
WHAT CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES ARE MOST BUSINESSES ADOPTING FIRST? AND SECOND?
As many business executives are getting past their fears and starting to realize the benefits for the long-term, Cloud adoption and migration for a number of software-oriented services is growing at a very rapid pace. Most are testing the waters with Cloud-based email services, secure file sharing, Customer Relationship Management (e.g.; SalesForce) and video conferencing – such that these applications are no longer hosted within a businesses local office IT architecture. Easing the burden of having to manage this level of basic network technology day-to-day is not difficult.
The next level of software services that are part of the Cloud migration movement go well beyond the aforementioned perfunctory network applications. Trust in the Cloud ecosystem is growing, as evidenced by adoption of more Cloud-based applications by businesses of all sizes, to handle sensitive transactions, intellectual property, and security services. Even companies that are highly regulated (food/beverage, healthcare, medical device manufacturers, education) are taking their business processes and transaction management systems to the Cloud, with reputable vendors with positive track records.
CLOUD ADOPTION CAN SAVE COSTS, AND REDUCE RISK PROFILES
With a Cloud migration a business generally lowers its burden and overhead – as well as lowering their risk profile. Cloud vendors often profess that they save their clients lots of money from taking the IT department cost structure away – as their foot in the door – however, if these Cloud vendors are responsible, their systems of internal controls over the Cloud-based services they offer can well surpass the controls that their customers could afford to carry out if left to their own non-Cloud devices.
CLOSING
If you are having challenges aligning your business’s IT plans with your strategic goals, we here to help. It’s what we do. As your trusted strategic IT advisors, we help steer you, your IT department and technology solution providers down the right path. We become a strategic and integral part of your team. My email link and our team’s main web page are hyperlinked above. Please reach out if you have questions. Or, call me at 818-251-1323.
Rick Mark is a Senior Manager in SingerLewak’s Business Risk and Technology Service group.
