Geek Speak: The Cloud

The thought of “cloud computing” may be an overwhelming and paralyzing idea to business owners. But rest assured, there’s nothing ominous or scary about the concept. The idea has been around for more than fifty years and is one of the most discussed topics we see at Dynamic Quest. We believe the reason for this is that cloud solutions point to some of the biggest strategic issues business owners seem to be looking to solve— how to enable faster, more streamlined program and data sharing globally.

This idea has materialized in cloud computing by combining the best of what single mainframe and distributed mainframe has to offer: a centralized management system that allows scalability and cost-efficient business operations.

Salesforce, Amazon and Google were the pioneers of the commercial cloud and introduced it to the public in the late ’90s. Like any new technology, cloud computing is subject to mass scrutiny, but has been able to withstand criticism by showcasing its massive advantages to various industries across the globe.

Cloud: Shaping the Business of Today

By now, we’ve witnessed cloud computing’s rapid growth with businesses looking to capitalize on what it has to offer. Businesses who adopt cloud services are likely to double their profit and revenue compared to those who do not. This is mainly because today’s consumers are likely to go online to gather information and make purchases.  With a global marketplace recognizing the benefits and potential of the cloud, as well as the wide-scale shift of consumers to going online for info and shopping, the cloud is shaping the business of today to better serve customers, foster relationships and open doors to cost reduction and revenue growth.

Snapshot of Cloud Technology Trends in Global Business Sectors:

  • Financial industry experts estimate 60{61194e7afa0946242429d3457858805d5d8e9f1e3c2fa6ff4cb841084e122ca3} of banks worldwide will use cloud with their business transactions in 2016 (Gartner).
  • The healthcare industry is seeing a rapid migration to cloud computing. In 2014, physicians and practitioners in the U.S. quickly adopted cloud-based health e-records with medical imaging and practice fusion, and the trend is expected to exponentially increase in 2015-2016 (Accenture).
  • Newer trends in the educational sector include using desktop cloud environments for maintaining shared PCs in schools and universities, including atypical collaboration channels for research not previously possible.
  • Cloud solutions in manufacturing are being leveraged at an increasing pace for minimizing risk to shop floor delays and downtime, utilizing offsite cloud backup and recovery to prevent business and technical problems that come with having onsite servers or data center.
  • The retail industry is on pace for cloud adoption to triple in size this year, from $4.2 billion to $15.1 billion (Accenture).
  • Telecommunications companies are advancing from early adoption of ready-made cloud environments, to a new and aggressive competitive trend – seizing the supply chain and creating new competition in the marketplace by developing their own cloud services for individual and enterprise users.
The World is Flat FluffyGlobal Cloud - Dynamic Quest

Cloud computing has recreated the global economy and shifted the business paradigm for expectations, possibilities and capabilities.  Simply put, cloud computing has forever changed our business environment. We’ve gone global. As Friedman predicted in The World Is Flat, the cloud has enabled us to interact and collaborate with anyone, anywhere in the world, at minimal cost and effort, all while supporting wide-ranging business needs such as storage, productivity suites and messaging. It has changed how we gather and analyze data, improving visibility and insights. This has resulted in faster product and service development.

Obviously, there is now significantly more room for growth with the cloud in our tool belts, allowing new scale for what’s possible. Nearly any business has new opportunities to scale up to some degree with no major hardware investment. The cloud sets the stage for businesses to grow faster and with more agility, while serving more customers with less overhead.

So nimbo-nebulous though it may sound, “the cloud” is commonplace in our world now, and is quickly becoming a universal backdrop for the ways we work, live and interact.

If you want to explore the ways cloud computing can take your business to new levels, whether it be through hosting, backup and disaster recovery, operational advancements, mobilizing of your workforce, development for cloud-based applications and business services, or dozens of other ways, give us a shout.  Dynamic Quest will connect (via the cloud or in person) to talk through what you can do to grow your business and what we can do to help you prosper.

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