The advent of the self-service paradigm has brought with it the ability to empower end-users to establish, manage and utilize their own hardware and software needs without any interaction with the service providers; in short, the traditional bottleneck that existed with IT departments holding the key to software access, hardware resources and trouble-shooting has been streamlined.
Cloud computing isn’t a new technology; the ability to remotely access the power of super-servers for a myriad of services such as storage and web hosting, is a convenient solution that many businesses have been taking advantage of since its inception. However this has been more an IT department’s domain and most businesses have not kept pace with the exponential developments of how cloud computing can deliver additional benefits to its operations.
The basics of cloud computing are simple, it enables organisations to outsource the need for investment in hardware to provide its networking and storage facilities.
For many companies, this meant the outsource of none-core infrastructure services to cloud service provides, and this is the extent to which cloud computing is being put to use, but is by no means the limitation of these powerful cloud solutions have to offer.
The advent of the self-service paradigm has brought with it the ability to empower end-users to establish, manage and utilize their own hardware and software needs without any interaction with the service providers; in short, the traditional bottleneck that existed with IT departments holding the key to software access, hardware resources and trouble-shooting has been streamlined.
Self-service features allow companies to respond quickly and efficiently to client demands. For some organisations this might be to deliver a short-term project requiring access to faster processing speeds or the ability to deliver a contract that requires the use of a certain software programme.
So why aren’t more businesses harnessing this extra power? It seems like cloud computing is a premier league player being signed to a Sunday league football team; with all the player’s skills but limited by the club’s ability to use them.
With that said, cloud solutions have been seen as limited to IT tools rather than the wide potential of business application tools. Business cloud solutions have taken leaf from the IT cloud where resource requests, authorization routing and orchestration were delivered seamlessly, to a whole level of credible business solutions.
With the correct set-up, cloud solutions can offer self-service features which can deliver the additional benefits of being able to access business critical software on demand in either a pay as you go or contract basis.
The benefits are obvious, with no capital investment required to provide state of the art hardware or constant development of a solution, the financial saving and operational efficiencies can be great. Coupling these benefits with scalability, cloud solutions can grow or downsize as your business changes.
In fact, on demand cloud computing is proving beneficial to all areas of a business, from human resources to payroll, customer services and facilities management, loan management and credit rating, the convenience and flexibility afforded by these add-on self-services is unilateral.
From it early days of providing access to faster processing capabilities to being able to use the latest software for data analysis, self-service solutions can provide businesses with the ability to respond to change, scale its operations and meet their client’s demands instantly; we now have our premier league player in the right league.
There are some key ingredients to establishing a successful and powerful self-service business solution; firstly, select the right vendor with the right combination of business solutions, establish robust security safeguards at your end and qualify and audit the provider’s security protocol, and ensure protecting privacy through the implementation of compliance policies that cover your own procedures as well as expect good level of access control granularity from the solution providers platform.
This is an essential starting point and do not forget to engage your IT and security departments to help you enforce the policies and monitor who, how and what is being accessed via the cloud business services.
Secondly, consideration should be given to all existing platforms whether this be an external client interface, supplier network or internal software, ensuring interoperability between these services should mean that all service providers and stakeholders are part of the set-up process.
Lastly, it is imperative that end-users are well trained in the capabilities of the service. Though many employees are now more tech-savvy, than say a decade ago, without the relevant training its like our premier league player is in the right league but being managed by a hockey coach. Engaging employees with the simplicity, reliability and convenience of the system in the context of the job that they do will ensure that the technology gets used and delivers the benefits intended by your investment in it.
In summary, cloud computing is currently being overlooked or under utilised by most organisations and in doing so could reduce the business’s competitive advantage. An effective cloud computing solution which incorporates the right self-service tools will not only deliver cost reductions but increase efficiency, collaboration and improve productivity.