Don’t Save Money with Cloud
Don’t Save Money with Cloud by Dave Michels
Does moving to the cloud make sense? It could, it might, maybe even should, but that’s not the reason to cloud. Businesses always care about ROI and minimizing costs. But don’t look at the cloud as just a financial exercise. The goal of moving to the cloud (or not moving) should be around collaboration.
Often, the cloud begets collaboration. The cloud, in terms of cloud communications, can help an organization realize collaboration.
Desktop-based solutions largely defined our perception of IT – static, local content, internal dialing. Dare to venture to an external site, and access to that content became much harder. Even a quick dial to a colleague, which could be four internal digits, becomes a 9 + full number at a customer site. That’s the easy part; trying to access data could be several hoops.
Email was first. Organizations that moved to an external hosted email found that the steps to connect to email (desktop, laptop, and smartphone) were the same for remote users.
Thanks to the cloud, the technical barriers of remote access are falling by the wayside. Applications such as Google Docs for document editing, Office 365, various desktop sharing tools, mobile apps, and video conferencing all enable simplified sharing and collaboration. Often, the experience and process are the same for local and remote users.
The cloud makes external collaboration easier. There’s no need to keep talking about customers with other internal employees – now just include them in the conversation. Location just isn’t as significant as it was, representing a huge shift in how business gets done. The speed of business is faster. Distance slowed things down, be it postal service, commuting, or travel. Today we collaborate instantly, discuss documents, exchange ideas in real time.
Cloud and collaboration go hand-and-hand. It is an important part of how the workplace is evolving. But there are two very big and common misperceptions. The first is that the cloud and collaboration are the same. The reality is the cloud enables collaboration in many ways, but ultimately these are just tools, not solutions in themselves. Organizations must embrace the tools through education and example.
Nor is collaboration an intramural sport – outfitting the team with collaboration tools is a great first step, but the goal must be beyond virtual office mates. Particularly with web and video conferencing, it must be easy to include external users. Modern tools of collaboration make engagement with customers, partners, and suppliers easy.
So don’t adopt the cloud as simply a means to save money. Look at the UC and the cloud as a game changer – how your organization works and collaborates. If a cloud (or premises) solution can improve and foster collaboration and mobility – do it. If you are looking at things strictly financially to save some coin – it’s a waste of time. Stick with what you got, it may last longer than your firm will.