Study: Cloud Computing Adds Business Value for SMBs
A new study by Oxford Economics shows that nearly two thirds business executives in the United States believe their cloud service provider adds significant value to their business results. The information could be a helpful selling point for managed services providers looking to add a professional cloud-based file sharing service to their customers' operations.
The study surveyed 350 business executives in all regions of the United States. Of them, 33 percent were CEOs, CTOs or COOs while the other 67 percent held other executive positions. The majority of these participants worked for companies making $750 million dollars or less in revenue.
Here’s a closer look at the results, which highlight the specific areas that may interest MSPs concerning cloud-based services helping businesses with production and growth. This should be considered a “top selling points” list for MSPs that are looking to expand their client bases via cloud computing and cloud-based file sharing services.
1. The Biggest Advantage: Production Speed
According to 71 percent of the respondents, the biggest advantage of deploying cloud services and tools was speed of operation and time to production.
Of these, 32 percent were looking to save operational expenses by adopting the Cloud. The other 68 percent were looking to the cloud to help them in other areas of business, and said the cloud resulted in unexpected cost savings and greater production efficiencies.
2. Helping the IT Department
Ed Cone, organizer of the “Path To Value” survey noted that small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) don’t have huge IT departments or hire many consultants. The cloud offers a platform for “greater collaboration and innovation” and therefore improved customer service.
Thirty-six percent of the respondents thought the cloud was responsible for pushing control out of IT to other lines of business, allowing employees in the IT department to focus on strategic initiatives and other data management activities. The other 53 percent thought in two years IT operations would significantly change.
3. Business Expansion
Because the cloud promotes higher efficiencies, respondents say that the cloud opens up new lines of business and therefore geographical expansion. As of now, 35 percent of respondents said that the cloud was critical to innovation strategy and 53% thought it would be critical within the next two years.
Forty percent thought the cloud was what enabled them to move into new geographic markets, while 57 percent of them thought that in two years, it would be vital to have the cloud in order to do so.
4. Modernization
Overall, the report found that the cloud was integral to the long-range vision of business.
As Cone states, there was a “strong correlation between those furthest along in adopting cloud computing and bottom line results.”
MSPs can help their clients adopt the cloud and therefore stay modern and competitive, assist internal IT departments, expand business offerings and boost production speeds. Being able to tie cloud services directly to increased revenue is an important step in convincing clients of the cloud’s effectiveness, when often the benefits are more intangible than tangible.
