Many of us know that cloud offers enhanced collaboration, disaster recovery, increased scalability, and smaller costs. But do you realize there’s also a connection between the use of cloud computing and increased business agility?

The Cloud Makes Businesses More Agile

The cloud helps organizations respond to the fast-paced business universe with speed, agility, and flexibility. Think about a company that has sporadic amplified workloads, such as when a retailer handles increased online sales during the holiday season. Without the cloud, an organization must over-buy IT resources for such peaks. Then, once the crests pass, the company still needs to manage and update the inactive IT gear. However, by migrating to a cloud solution, a company is able to add or delete computing power, memory and bandwidth on an as-needed basis. This undoubtedly helps the retailer better and more rapidly respond to change.

Or, consider the example of a medical billing company. Focusing for several years on managing billing and accounting processes for healthcare practices, the company wants to enter the popular electronic medical records field. This move is expected to reach a never-ending list of healthcare groups. As a result, the organization turns to a cloud solution that can provide the necessary flexibility and scalability to accommodate the growth it is anticipating. These are just a couple of examples of how cloud computing can have a direct impact on increased business agility.

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Research has also shown that those businesses moving most aggressively to the cloud are enjoying a competitive advantage through augmented business agility. Specifically, 74% of enterprise decision makers say that cloud computing has provided their organization with a competitive advantage, according to Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. Moreover, 32% say that business agility was their primary reason for cloud adoption, followed by both increased innovation and lower costs with 14%.

Faster, Better Response to Market Fluctuations

When it comes to business agility, the cloud allows organizations to be more responsive to fluctuations in the market, helps them get to the market faster with new products and services, and shortens time to market for new business launches. Let’s further explore how speed from cloud computing can enhance business agility:

• Addresses business changes: By migrating to an elastic cloud solution, your enterprise is able to scale however necessary to meet changing business demands. If a company over-provisions its in-house data center, the enterprise is unable to scale back. Conversely, an organization can quickly and seamlessly right-size its environment supported by the cloud.
• Enables applications to grow quickly: Dated approaches to configuring hardware and software are time-consuming. However, cloud computing provides a rapid deployment model that enables applications to grow quickly, helping your company match increasing usage requirements. Let’s suppose a cable provider is offering an attractive deal for a limited time. The flexibility that cloud computing brings will help the provider make it through that hectic promotional period, leading to unprecedented business growth.

The benefits that cloud computing brings are clearly indisputable. So, what are you waiting for? Give cloud communications solutions a try. It’s the only way to increase business agility fast and steady.