The Cloud as Business Incubator
Businesses are always interested in finding ways to achieve the same business goals faster and less expensively.
The first phase of cloud deployment often focuses on cost cutting. Businesses are always interested in finding ways to achieve the same business goals faster and less expensively. As efficiencies improve, however, new opportunities reveal themselves – not only to do the same things better but to perform entirely new tasks altogether. This is what makes the cloud powerful enough to be considered an incubator of new ideas, or even new business models.
Why are these opportunities opening up now? First, the cloud is compatible with nearly everything. It’s basically the “Switzerland” of IT platforms. If you want to offer a new service, using the cloud as the delivery platform makes your offering immediately interoperable with would-be customers using any variety of devices, operating systems, and networks. When access to almost anyone and everyone has opened up, business possibilities explode. Ideas once stymied by legacy equipment and interoperability and costly integration barriers are unleashed.
To consider the cloud as an incubator that can help you realise your business potential, ask yourself a few questions to help get the creative juices flowing:
- What would I love to do to grow our business (or department or business unit) if money were no object?
- What data about my customers, sponsors, competitors, or others would be pivotal to coming up with new business ideas if only I could access it?
- Do I have any legacy IT infrastructure that’s holding me back because it needs to depreciate before I can reinvest?
Viewing the cloud as an interoperable and relatively low-cost IT platform frees you to dream big. If you’re succeeding at saving some money with your cloud initiatives, it’s time to start thinking bigger.
