Cloud
It’s no secret that digital transformation is a top priority for organizations today. In fact, only safeguarding corporate data and security ranks higher for IT leaders.
Of all the ways digital transformation is bringing, well, transformation to the enterprise, none is larger than the shift to a cloud-based architecture. In Forrester’s 2022 Infrastructure Cloud Survey, 75 percent of respondents reported an increase in their IT budget for public cloud.
Among the great drivers of cloud migration are the desire for greater operational agility—especially in developing new tools and services—as well as efficiency, productivity, and resilience.
The recent economic climate has accentuated this shift. A recent Google Cloud survey asked more than 1,900 global tech and business leaders if the economic climate, reflecting inflation and supply chain fears, was changing their cloud strategy. The top three responses indicated not only that organizations were “doubling down on cloud,” but where in particular they were doing it:
- More than 40 percent planned to increase their investment in cloud-based services and products
- More than 33 percent planned on migrating from legacy enterprise software to cloud-based tools
- And more than 32 percent planned on migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud
Core Workloads and Business Applications Move to the Cloud
Where CIOs and IT leaders once approached cloud investments cautiously, enterprises are catching up with migrating more of their workloads and core business applications. Within the next three years, Deloitte predicts that just 15 percent of workloads and applications will remain on traditional, on-premise solutions.
You can think of organizations as working their way down the stack. Thanks to the impact and influence of Salesforce, in particular, CRM was the first significant enterprise application to gain wide acceptance and make the jump to the cloud. In more recent years, “traditional” software like the Microsoft Office Suite (now Microsoft 365) moved to the cloud, along with ERP, HR management systems and other line of business applications.
Given all of this, it’s no surprise that IT and business leaders are looking at ECM as the next part of their modernization journey. In fact, the cloud ECM market is projected to grow into a $97 billion industry by 2026.
Why Cloud ECM Makes Sense
The cloud offers a secure, cost-effective, and practical solution that can help businesses better manage their information and remain competitive in today's digital economy.
Here are three of the most compelling reasons why organizations are moving their ECM to the cloud:
- Cost Savings
Managing legacy ECM is costly. There’s the upfront investment in licenses for hardware, databases, and old software. There are also staffing resources and maintenance costs to keep servers up and running.
Moving your ECM to the cloud can reduce these costs significantly. Cloud providers offer economical subscription plans and pay-as-you-go models that can be tailored to meet your specific usage needs so you never pay for more than what you use.
- Improved Security & Compliance
The importance of safeguarding corporate data is hard to overstate. That’s why it’s important to emphasize that the level of security offered by cloud solutions is far superior to that of on-prem legacy ECM.
For example, Microsoft invests billions of dollars every year to maintain the security of their customers’ data in the cloud. With such a high level of expertise and investment in security, the Microsoft public cloud protects organizations and their sensitive data against malicious threats and data breaches far better than an on-premise legacy ECM system ever could.
Cloud providers are also equipped with powerful tools that can keep your data compliant with relevant industry standards and regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.
- Support Work from Anywhere
Cloud ECM gives employees remote access to documents and other resources. Again, this is an area where the cloud outshines older software that is often harder to update and integrate.
Cloud ECM allows teams to work together more easily while accelerating workflows. There’s no need to mess with complicated VPN or client/server technology. Additionally, most users don’t need extensive training to get started with cloud-based tools and technologies because of their user-friendly interfaces.
The benefits of moving ECM to the cloud are clear. Not only does the cloud offer significant cost savings and improved security and compliance measures, but it also provides the flexibility for employees to work from anywhere.
With projections that the cloud ECM market will reach nearly $100 billion by 2026, it’s clear that organizations recognize the value in this modernization journey. Now is the time for businesses to make the move to a cloud-based ECM solution.
