The future of business is in the cloud. Cloud computing is changing the way industries and organisations store, share, and process information, making it easier and more cost-efficient in every way.
Cloud management services allow organisations to make sense of much more information in a shorter space of time, which means management is also changing.
More businesses than ever before are using paid cloud services, but a lack of understanding about cloud computing is holding business leaders from making the leap.
But despite this, cloud computing is revolutionising business and business leadership.
What is cloud computing?
In simple terms, cloud services are the delivery of IT resources over the internet. Businesses can use technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases with the cloud rather than having to pay for expensive hardware and then have the ongoing cost of maintenance and upgrade.
A cloud environment can be public, private, or hybrid. Public clouds are cloud environments created from IT infrastructure not owned by the end user, such as Microsoft Azure.
Private clouds are environments solely dedicated to a single end user, usually run behind that user’s firewall.
Hybrid cloud is a mixture of both public and private clouds, managed as a single environment using an integrated management platform. Multiclouds are similar, made up of one or more cloud services either public or private, but aren’t managed as a single environment.
What is cloud management?
Cloud management is the process of how an organisation oversees and controls services and applications in the cloud environment, whether it’s deployed in public, private, or hybrid environments.
Cloud management helps businesses to achieve these goals:
- Secure and safe data storage
- Manage security features
- Manage the platform used to store and process data
- Backup and disaster recovery in case anything goes wrong with the system
- Cloud analysis to track cloud workloads and user experience
Maintaining the cloud infrastructure is essential to ensuring businesses get the most value from using the cloud. Cloud management requires effective monitoring, planning, and maintenance of the cloud infrastructure, and being able to identify potential issues and act before they become serious problems.
How is cloud computing changing management?
Cloud computing is not only changing the way we work but how managers can plan, organize, and lead their organisations.
Organise and plan
Previously, different, separate systems existed for different departments or teams. With cloud-based services, everything is streamlined in one centralised system, allowing businesses to standardise processes and tools so data is completely compatible and accessible to all.
Everything can be hosted in the cloud – from data storage and software programs to entire operating systems, centralising your entire business operation and creating opportunities for more effective collaboration. With all your data in one place, planning, communication, and decision-making is more effective and faster.
Leadership and insights
As businesses grow, teams can drift apart and have goals that are disparate from other teams within the organisations.
Management is about leadership, ensuring all teams are unified under a principal goal and to motivate each team, and each employee within that team, to achieve the same purpose. Cloud-based platforms create communication and strategy channels that weave teams together to create a common culture of working together, rather than in silos. Automated updates and upgrades allow you to focus more on leadership than trying to get vital data across the organisation.
Cloud computing simplifies data processing and allows businesses to quickly get operational insights. Analytics can reveal where past processes have impeded productivity and predict future trends, and how to handle the opportunities to meet new demands.
Flexibility and efficiency are bywords of cloud-based services – scaling up or down according to expected changes is inexpensive and simple, compared to traditional in-house infrastructure. As businesses grow, resource allocation or adding more features to your cloud service is as simple as speaking to your provider.
Is cloud computing right for you?
More than half of cloud users identify cost efficiency as being the biggest driver of adopting cloud computing. Cloud computing enables organisations to be agile and quickly scale resources up or down as needed.
Cloud computing is a game changer for business leaders. It fundamentally changes the decision-making process, streamlines internal processes and improves collaboration with employees and customers. Beyond being cost effective, think of cloud computing as part of your team that adds business value and reduces risk.
To explore the way cloud technology can benefit your business, get in touch with the experts at Lindentech today.
