formerly FinancialForce
formerly FinancialForce
The benefits of cloud software is not simply doing the same things you’ve done before but over the Internet. It’s all about providing new business capabilities and driving process efficiency.
The shift to running business applications in the cloud is now upon us because of compelling business benefits rather than the more obvious IT management and cost saving reasons. Certainly cost control and cash flow management are often quoted as reasons for selecting cloud services but it’s the raised levels of security, business agility and the new ways of working that are enabled by these services that is having the most profound effect on business performance.
Here’s seven key benefits of cloud business applications that can help your business run smoother and react quicker.
Keeping on top of data security and protecting the data of your customers has got simply too hard for most in-house IT departments to manage themselves. It’s too complex and too important to remain as a DIY project . By leveraging cloud services companies of all services are able to rely on the expertise and industry best practices used by the best in the business.
The best cloud services have audit trails baked in tracking of who did what, when and why providing the high levels of assurance audit teams are looking for. Old style methods of email conversations, paper trails and to and fro with the auditors is replaced by automated timestamps, system tracked authorizations, attached files and supporting conversations all tied directly to the relevant source transactions.
Cloud application upgrades are typically rolled out multiple times per year so as your software provider delivers new capabilities then your business can take advantage of them quickly. At the same time leading cloud platforms give your team the ability to configure their own new capabilities and get them in the hands of your users in days or weeks rather than the months or years that on-premise system development required.
In the days of on-premise server sizing businesses were required to predict future usage of users and transactions. In contrast cloud-based services are used by businesses of all sizes so you can be confident your apps will scale with you business grows or shrinks. That means you are always ready to move quickly and your systems won’t hold you back.
Today’s workforce have grown up in connected world and take social tools, online collaboration and working in virtual teams for granted. Unfortunately legacy on-premise systems were designed and built when these tools didn’t exist. The leading cloud applications have social collaboration baked into the applications so your team can work together with the latest modern tools.
Similarly today’s workforce expects their applications to work across all their devices whether they are in the office, in the coffee shop, on the train or at home. The leading cloud applications provides that level of access across the most popular smartphone, tablet and web devices giving your team the flexibility your team is looking for whilst improving the reaction times of your business.
Old style on-premise computing with arrays of servers in energy sucking air conditioned machine rooms not only created scary carbon footprints but also eye watering utility bills. Modern cloud applications benefit from huge economies of scale in energy consumption and the leaders are moving quickly to their meet targets of using 100% renewable energy sources.
