Can moving to the cloud save your business money?

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You gotta spend money to make money?” While it’s true that growing enterprises need to upgrade their premises, technology, and team in order to level up, that doesn’t mean they need to spend more money to do so. 

Take cloud computing, for instance. 

While companies incur a new set of costs when moving to the cloud, they end up saving money in the long run. How does this work? Well, there are a number of reasons why cloud computing saves companies money while simultaneously enabling major growth and agility.

Why do companies save money with the cloud?

Here are some things to consider about the cost-effectiveness of cloud computing and why you should seriously consider adopting it:

1. Unburden yourself from owning and managing server equipment

The “cloud” refers to any on-demand service that utilizes computing resources over the Internet. While a cloud solution doesn’t remove the need for computers, printers, and other typical business hardware, it does remove the large capital expense of owning and managing your own server — something that’s held many small- to medium-sized businesses back in the past. 

Take, for instance, your app and all its data and files. In order to be available online, it needs to be hosted on a server. Rather than buy a physical server unit that you would need to store on site and then pay someone to maintain, a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure enables you to lease space on a virtualized server. They then handle the physical resources for it. 

As you can imagine, outsourcing something like server ownership and maintenance to a cloud provider can provide a huge relief for your business. 

Servers cost a lot of money in terms of overhead expenses, security and performance management, as well as ongoing maintenance. What’s more, the average life of a server is only about three years. So, the alternative (where you own and manage it) is a very expensive route to take, since you can expect costs to spike every few years when it’s time to purchase new equipment, licenses, and so on again.

When businesses move to the cloud, they no longer have server equipment to pay for or time they have to devote to manage it. Instead, they pay a monthly or annual fee to utilize the cloud service, which keeps costs even and predictable, while allowing an expert to do the heavy lifting of managing the hardware.

2. New features and solutions deploy more quickly

One of the keys to success in business is the ability to be agile, to make decisions and then swiftly implement them with accuracy. 

But if you’re stuck waiting on a provider to set up and configure new systems, or for someone to upgrade features on your hardware, this can greatly impede your productivity. In turn, it’ll take longer to get your app on the market, which will prolong your ability to generate revenue from it. 

With the cloud, that’s not an issue as it’s much easier to control your computing resources with a click of a button. There’s no need to wait on an engineer or expert to find time in their schedule to help you launch new products or features. 

Plus, you can sign up for a cloud solution today and have a new database, storage center, or other digital asset available right away. Again, there’s no human component or physical hardware you have to wait on to start moving your business in the right direction.

3. Add complex features with ease

The cloud isn’t just beneficial because it makes it easier to add new features. The cloud simplifies the process of building complex features, too. 

Think about some of the latest trends you’ve spotted around the web, like chatbots and AI. If you were to task your developer or an external provider with creating these kinds of features for your business from scratch, it would take way too much time and money. 

But with a provider like Microsoft Azure, there’s no need to recreate the wheel. These technologies already exist and are available for you to leverage for your own purposes.

When you add a cloud service provider (CSP) to the mix, you get even more out of these complex features. That’s why Convergine attends industry conferences like Microsoft Build. It’s events like these that help Convergine stay on top of the most innovative solutions and, consequently, allow your company to always be on the cutting edge.

 4. Minimize your resources

When you scale a business that’s reliant on on-premise technologies, it’s inevitable that you’re going to add more bulk to your operation. You’ll need more physical space to store everything, new equipment to accomplish more tasks, additional staff and vendors to power your processes, and so on. 

However, when you move the cloud, you can scale your operation just as effectively, but with fewer resources. 

You can cut back on the amount of office space since fewer people are needed to build solutions, manage equipment, or handle tedious tasks. 

You also get to free yourself of the burden and cost of physical hardware, with everything now residing in a convenient and secure location on the Internet. 

As a consequence, you’ll reduce your overall energy consumption and costs, too. 

5. Grow your business with a complete and efficient system

It’s not just transitioning from hardware to cloud services that cuts costs. Take your website, for instance. 

A basic website certainly helps to increase brand visibility. But with something like an API (which connects other applications to your website), you could capture more sales without having to lift a finger… or even be aware that a sale is going on. It’s all automated through the checkout system and payment gateway built into your site.

When you build your business’s solutions in the cloud, what you’re actually doing is creating a powerhouse of productivity. With Microsoft Azure’s marketplace alone, there are over 1,000 apps that integrate with one another:

With countless apps and utilities to leverage, the sky's the limit in terms of what your business can do. And because it all works within the same ecosystem, it doesn’t require you to waste time jumping from app to app nor does it force your team to find another platform to collaborate from. 

 6. Stricter compliance with security and privacy regulations

Whether your business exchanges data with consumers through on-premise technology or cloud services, there are strict rules in place for securing it. These regulations differ from country to country, too. 

For example, the Canadian data residency legislation prevents certain kinds of information (like highly sensitive data from the government) to move through the cloud internationally. This need for compliance is something we see often when Convergine customers send us their RFPs and it’s why we believe the cloud makes the most sense for these kinds of businesses. 

Violations of consumer security and privacy are a big deal, and can result in egregious costs if not attended to properly from the start. With Azure, though, security and privacy is built right into your cloud solutions. Not only that, Azure is the only platform that can help businesses meet most, if not all, of their region’s requirements. 

7. Increased performance and stability 

One of the problems with relying on on-premise technology to power your business is that it requires a lot of vigilance and maintenance to ensure it always performs at a high level. With the cloud, though, there’s no need to constantly monitor your solutions. 

For starters, the cloud is often associated with lower cost disaster recovery. That’s because you can capture more frequent backups in the cloud and quickly restore your systems with a couple clicks. If you can’t afford to have your systems go down even for a few minutes, then this level of business continuity is priceless. 

The cloud is often attributed with increased application performance, too. For instance, you’ve seen notifications reminding you to update your desktop software, right? Those updates are important to make as they allow software developers to upgrade their product, add new features, and patch bugs. The only way they can automatically push those updates through and ensure your software stays in peak condition is to do it from the cloud.

In addition, cloud specialists like Convergine provide fast and robust support to make sure customers are covered when something breaks or goes offline. Our SLAs and service guarantees ensure that you always have someone available to keep your app online and selling.

Why you save even more money by hiring a CSP

There’s no doubt about it: when you move your operations to the cloud, you save a lot of money in the process. So, why would you even think about taking those savings and putting them towards hiring a cloud service provider? 

Well, this isn’t a matter of moving your money from one expense to another. A CSP is an investment that protects the integrity of and ensures a future for your business. And with a Microsoft Silver Partner like Convergine, your CSP helps you get the most out of your cloud services while activating, even more, cost savings. 

Think about it like this: 

With on-premises technologies, either you use your own team to manage everything (including equipment, physical storage, security, cooling systems, etc.) or you hire an expensive specialist to do it. 

With cloud computing, there’s no physical technology to manage. Azure takes care of that part for you. Convergine, your CSP, handles everything else. 

The best part about working with a CSP is that it removes many of the obstacles businesses face when they try to move to the cloud on their own. 

Securing apps, maintaining performance, and general cloud management can be challenging and risky to do on your own, especially if you don’t have any experience with the cloud or with Azure technologies. With Convergine, your business can effectively move to the cloud and start taking advantage of the cost-saving benefits of the cloud and the power of Azure immediately.

If you want to learn more about what Convergine can do to help your business grow and save money in the process, let’s talk.

Check out our recent blog posts to explore more web development and cloud computing. 

• Protecting your website: how website maintenance prevents costly fumbles  
• What Cloud Service Provider does for your business that Microsoft doesn't.