Businesses turn to cloud computing to achieve corporate cost reduction

Promising to provide scalable environments capable of adequately hosting data analytics applications, cloud vendors have been known to support corporate cost reduction endeavors. Although there are thousands of these organizations located throughout the world, their service models vary, meaning that businesses looking to benefit from the cloud may have difficulty discerning which provider is the right fit for them. 

As a result, a number of organizations have outsourced to firms providing electronic procurement services, a tactic that makes searching for cloud hosting companies much easier. Detailed descriptions, as well as thorough reviews of these organizations, can be found on e-procurement websites. 

What they're looking for 

While some enterprises want to be able to run software applications off a private cloud, others want to use Software as a Service deployments for storage. According to Cloud Tweaks contributor Mojgan Afshari, one of the key features of cloud computing that makes it so appealing is that it enables employees distributed throughout different regions to access files and data from a single location in a seamless manner.

"Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction," stated the National Institution of Standards and Technology, as quoted by Afshari. 

Benefits and conditions may apply 

Whereas in-house data centers were the norm 20 years ago, cloud servers and storage are becoming industry standard. However, just because the technology has the ability to enhance efficiency and drive business growth doesn't mean the organizations providing solutions will meet expectations. Like any other sector, some cloud vendors are better than others. 

Datamation noted that accurately predicting the return on investment of cloud adoption can be exceptionally tricky because how much a company profits from the solution depends on the ways in which its departments utilize it. Every business has a different operating model, meaning that comparing and contrasting user experiences is somewhat ambiguous. For example, two organizations may source from the same cloud vendor, but one may use its services to host an enterprise resource planning program while the other may utilize it to run data analytics applications. 

Business process outsourcing, such as using a different company to help find a cloud vendor, may be a good option for executives looking for detailed descriptions of multiple services. Having an extra bit of guidance never hurts.