It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m back east with my family. We’re sitting around, eating and drinking at the dinner table, when I’m asked, “So what does your company do?”
In short, I know we have our conglomerate hand in pretty much everything, but I can’t say that. I reply, “I work in the cloud business group.” Immediately regretting my answer, my 71-year-old father looks up at me, confused, “You mean clouds like the weather?”
He has a smartphone that we all taught him how to use.
I ask, “Do you ever check your bank accounts on your phone?”
“Yes.”
“What about your Facebook profile?”
“Sometimes.”
“And your e-mail?”
“Every day.”
Whether we know it or not, we use the cloud every day. It's becoming more adopted by individuals, as well as by large companies. By 2020, Forbes estimates that 83% of enterprise workloads will be hosted on the cloud. Because of its great benefits, it’s easy to see why consumers and corporations are making the shift (some faster than others).
Here are the "Top 5" value drivers for moving to the cloud.
1)Flexibility
With options for public, private, and hybrid SaaS models, you can decide which flavor is best suited for your business needs.
On the balance sheet, SaaS solutions such as SAC will fall under the operational expenditure (OPEX) umbrella instead of the traditional capital expenditure (CAPEX). The shift from fixed to variable and subscription-based pricing puts less stress on companies by allowing you to pay for what you need, when you need it.
2)Business Scalability
Cloud provides for the agile adoption of new business models and capabilities. As your business and your requirements change, you can add additional licenses to meet demand or scale back as desired.
3)Faster Innovation
Easier and faster availability of cutting-edge analytics capabilities will let you test new ideas faster and decrease the difficulty of starting up.
4)Location Independence
With the cloud, you can support your business growth by accessing disparate sources of data more easily and securely at any time, from any location.
5)Simplified Processes
You can transform the boardroom experience, and reduce preparation time and effort, with cloud adoption. Products such as SAP Digital Boardroom will empower you to drive board-level conversations as it removes duplication of effort and confusion around producing and presenting management reporting on same topics/ KPIs by different lines of business.
With SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Digital Boardroom you can answer ad-hoc questions on the fly, analyze root-causes, and simulate business impact of decisions in various scenarios.
While most companies and individuals have been using cloud applications for years, there are still those out there who are skeptical or unaware of its numerous benefits. It’s extremely important that we continue to educate those late adopters and laggards in order to better improve their business outcomes.
Learn More
- See the video introduction to SAP Analytics Cloud 101
- Watch this interview with SAP CEO Bill McDermitt as he discusses how enterprises are moving to the cloud.
- Review this curated list of resources on the SAP Learning Hub, featuring guided playlists, videos, and additional blogs, to help get you started
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