With the emergence of new technology comes the fostering of innovation and enablement of growth across today’s dynamic business landscape. Cloud services are a top contender among these disruptive technologies, so much so that they are becoming essential to organizations seeking to realize their digital transformation goals.
As Canadian businesses look to overcome operational challenges while also providing better experiences for their customers, they are increasingly turning to cloud solutions to access new capabilities that were once outside of their reach. Even small businesses are turning to cloud, as it’s a more cost-effective way to access the tools they need to remain competitive in an evolving digital landscape.
To better understand how the cloud provides valuable and scalable solutions to businesses of all sizes, CDW Canada published a comprehensive report on the state of cloud adoption in the Canadian landscape – today and looking ahead to tomorrow. We’ve highlighted some of the main benefits of cloud adoption below.
Achieve cost-effectiveness
According to our 2021 cloud report, constrained or reduced IT budgets are typically the most common factors that lead Canadian organizations to consider using cloud services. In fact, over half of smaller organizations (52 percent) and 46 percent of medium-sized organizations were driven by budget constraints to migrate to the cloud. While each organization must determine whether on-premise server infrastructure or cloud infrastructure is better to manage their IT needs, cloud systems are undoubtedly more cost effective than traditional servers as it reduces hardware, energy, labour and maintenance costs. Additionally, organizations that leverage cloud computing only pay for the resources they use, eliminating the cost of underutilization.
Level the playing field
Cloud technologies make it easier for organizations of all sizes to reach their goals. Since cloud solutions provide cost-effective access to powerful digital capabilities, small businesses are able to leverage the cloud to deliver superior services to their customers in order to compete with larger and more established organizations already leveraging advanced digital resources.
Drive collaboration
As the onset of COVID-19 prompted stay-at-home orders, many businesses were left scrambling with how to accommodate a remote workforce overnight. Our report found large numbers of organizations are seeing remote employee collaboration during the pandemic. As employees become accustomed to these remote work solutions, organizations will need to continue to invest in digital capabilities that allow employees to work productively from whatever environment they choose. The cloud provides a solution to this problem, as it enables employees to collaborate without being on-premise. With cloud storage services, employees can also access documents and information from their remote locations so they can continue to work on projects together more efficiently and more meaningfully.
Improve organizational infrastructure
Cloud solutions are becoming vital to business success for a number of reasons. First, they enable organizations to sustain and scale their operations in a reliable and meaningful way. Second, they allow organizations to deliver superior digital services and experiences to their customers. Our report found that organizations further along their transformation journey that have already migrated to the cloud say the main benefits include improved security, business agility, simplified and standardized infrastructure, sourcing control, enhanced innovation and digital transformation. In fact, over one third of Canadian organizations (38 percent) reported an improvement in all these areas once they migrated to the cloud. Lower IT costs, improved staff productivity and faster speed to market were also mentioned as some of the greatest benefits of these solutions.
Future-proofing business
The ability to deliver reliable digital services and experiences at a scale will grow in importance over the next five years, with the vast majority (75 percent) of chief experience offers believing that this ability will make or break organizational success in the near- and long-term. These ambitions will strain IT systems and put pressure on organizations to ensure scalability and reliability. In order to remain competitive and meet these demands, more and more businesses will – and should – turn to cloud.
More information on our Cloud Report can be found at the link here. If you’re interested in learning more about CDW’s cloud solutions and how we can help your business, visit cdw.ca/cloud.
