We know that businesses are moving to the cloud for all kinds of great reasons – better collaboration, improved security, and increased productivity – but what exactly are the financial benefits? What will convince your CFO to love the cloud? Today we look at several compelling financial reasons for transitioning to the cloud and examine how that move can begin affecting your company’s bottom line.
- Improved Security Features – Cloud providers offer a higher level of security than your on-premise server infrastructures can ever hope to achieve – your data assets are backed up securely and consistently in data centers around the world. This also means better support and less downtime in the event something catastrophic does happen – which means your office will keep running almost no matter what.
- No More Upgrades or Infrastructure – Using conventional software means constantly having to upgrade to stay current and this means extra costs not just in terms of the software itself but also because of the training needs and downtime it creates. Cloud apps deploy upgrades seamlessly over time so you’ll never incur the opportunity cost of having your employees tied up with a changeover again. At the same time you’ll be able to stop worrying about infrastructure maintenance and just focus on running your business.
- Less Need for End-User Training – Speaking of training, cloud-based computing apps are at the forefront of intuitive user experience. Switching to a system that is easy to learn and simple to use saves you money in training end-users and automatically ups your bottom line productivity by increasing efficiency.
- Better Support / Smoother Experience – When you install traditional on-premise software applications you are inherently creating a closed system. Which hardware and OS you run it on, which version(s) you are running, and how your team configures the specifics all make it unique to your company. This makes broad support significantly more difficult – the result is your need for in-house resources to help manage the infrastructure and to fix the problems that arise. For cloud applications everyone is working from the same version at the same time – issues arise and are fixed globally. The result is a system that works consistently without you devoting significant man hours to it.
- Real-time Financial Visibility – Old on-premise software typically uses batch processing (either nightly, weekly, or monthly) to pick up transactions and post them in your ledgers as well as to consolidate records and perform other standard financial functions. In the cloud transactions and other changes are integrated into your financial reporting in real time. This kind of live updating visibility means a better understanding of your company’s financial health at all times.
- Simpler Integration and Process Improvement – Cloud applications come in many varieties to solve different business problems but they share a common architecture and thus have a much simpler time integrating. APIs allow you to plug and play additional applications easily or to develop further integrations as part of an ecosystem to target your unique business needs. At the same time you’ll be able to preview most feature releases before they happen to determine any amendments to SOPs and to prepare appropriately to take advantage of new tools immediately as they become available. Both of these mean a more efficient process for your workforce.
Studies show that 47% of companies plan to move their core enterprise resource planning software to the cloud by 2018 – when will your company make the leap? If you’re looking for more ways to convince your CFO to love the cloud check out our 15 Benefits of Cloud Computing article here for even more great reasons!
