Moving from Cloud Adoption to Cloud Integration

Cloud technology has become the standard for businesses in every industry. If there’s one thing true about technology in general, it’s that it’s constantly evolving into newer and better solutions. Cloud technology was once reserved for only the most cutting-edge businesses, but now any business that wants to remain competitive has adopted cloud technology. If you are a business owner who is ready for the next big thing, it’s now time to focus on cloud integration.

Understand How Cloud Integration Can Benefit You

The difference between cloud adoption and cloud integration is finding the advantages that reach beyond the level of access. It’s one thing to see the value of storing and sharing data through cloud technologies, but it’s another thing entirely to create new value and optimize cloud technology to maximize benefits.

I’ve discussed how cloud technologies are hugely beneficial for small businesses and corporations alike, especially when it comes to digital data storage and safe sharing, among many other uses. Now we must start to leverage it to its full potential. It seems to me that most enterprises are still focused on the adoption stage and haven’t yet realized the scope of cloud technologies and the benefits that come with it.

Businesses gain access to a broader range of software possibilities and can integrate disparate data from many databases and software applications. Cloud integration offers automatic scalability, and you can access your data integration software anywhere through a cloud-based portal.

Business process management apps within the cloud bring new functionality to businesses, yet most companies haven’t realized the full potential of the cloud. Cloud service providers continually offer new developments that focus on business solutions instead of just cloud migration. These solutions include better built-in services, such as sales development platforms that speed up the time between the creation of a product or service to when it hits the market. Companies like SAP that are quickly evolving into a cloud company with SaaS offerings and a PaaS platform, SAP HANA Cloud Platform that brings any company’s heterogeneous landscape together. Hear more about these integration capabilities in a live interview. Cloud services can significantly reduce downtime and improve many facets of your business plan. By leveraging cloud technologies, you can add functionality and innovation to your workplace that legacy systems previously could not achieve. However, the only way to ensure this leveraging power is to have the proper management team in place.

Change Your Cloud Management Strategy

If you’ve successfully adopted cloud technologies but don’t seem to be reaping the full benefits of the system, consider changing your management outlook. Instead of focusing efforts on piloting and executing cloud technologies, my advice is to instead emphasize strategies that endorse streamlining company operations. It’s important to focus your business plan if you want to properly use cloud technology, even if it means initiating a new companywide management strategy.

Your management strategy for the cloud should take an agile development approach. Cloud technologies offer reliable automation tools that can streamline employee workloads and cut wasted time. Regulate your development platform and take advantage of the cloud while staying focused on only necessary tasks.

On average, companies are currently only delivering 18 percent of their workload to the cloud. A better utilization of your cloud strategy could boost that percentage in a short period of time. Companies adept at cloud integration have leveraged the cloud for more than two-thirds of their work, which has given them time to focus on other things. By putting more of your company’s workload in the cloud, you can cut costs and enhance speed and productivity.

If you have a company that still does not fully realize the potential of cloud technologies, you can bet your competitors are using this disadvantage against you. Businesses leverage the lack of cloud integration and optimization by their competitors to boost their own scalability and market better execution. They’re cutting costs and enjoying the full potential of cloud integration while others focus on the wrong areas.

Ease of migration does play a part in how quickly a company can build its cloud strategy. If your business was slow to adopt cloud technologies, I’m willing to bet that it’s still behind the learning curve. However, as cloud technology continues to evolve and develop more services, you can close the gap between your level of cloud integration and that of your competitors.

Redouble Your Cloud Integration Efforts to Topple Competitors

Take the plunge to fully integrate cloud technologies into your business. A slow adoption phase doesn’t have to result in an equally slow integration process. Move forward with a fully formed and well-planned cloud optimization strategy.

The following tips can help you maximize your efforts:

• Develop a solid governance strategy. Establishing policies for cloud integration will ensure that employees follow set standards, particularly as cloud suites become increasingly complex. These guidelines will encourage everyone to use resources responsibly.

• Adopt cloud analytics. Top-quality cloud analytics tools will allow your cloud technologies to operate at maximum efficiency. If a cloud service fails to deliver, it will be reflected in your cloud analytics.

• Choose cloud services with multivendor adoption. Popular cloud services have gained widespread adoption, so they’re now a standard for many businesses. Various vendors use the functions on different cloud platforms. If you use these services, it greatly reduces your risk of being locked into one cloud provider.

• Work with the right managed service partner. Cloud service providers vary greatly from one to the next. Be sure to work with a managed service partner that offers you the reliable services you need.

Work with your IT team to understand the full potential of cloud technologies, then translate this information to your employees. Offer workshops or team meetings to discuss the different services the cloud can and which services your enterprise can benefit from in particular.

IT may need to expand staff or learn new skills to fully embrace cloud integration. Short-term spending now will make collaboration easier as well as heighten security and open new platforms for your business to increase scalability—which will increase profits later.

This article has been brought to you in part by the SAP HANA cloud platform. Please visit the SAP HANA cloud platform to find the latest in software and services to power your business.

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