On several occasions, we have analyzed how, in the context of digital transformation, the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated the cloud migration processes of companies to respond more effectively to remote work needs. This turnaround has not witnessed any particular signs of recession in the context of the new normal, where many workers have at least partially returned to the office to reach that dimension that is conventionally recognized in hybrid work, regardless of whether it is based or not, on effective smart working mode. On a technological level, in addition to making a virtue of necessity, cloud adoption has brought about a series of non-negligible benefits for companies that have implemented it correctly and functionally concerning their business needs.
We refer to the so-called generic advantages of cloud computing, which correspond to a generic cost reduction, greater scalability, and more careful control of the resources used to meet the company’s IT needs. The benefits of automating security and data protection procedures, including the implementation of business continuity plans, are far from negligible. In a generally favorable context, improving the quality of hybrid work constitutes a substantial added value in the success of the company, both in terms of profitability of production and of positive repercussions in what in jargon is defined as employee satisfaction. , who can enjoy and appreciate the as-a-service models’ convenience and ease of use daily. Let’s see some of the primary benefits cloud adoptions have implemented in improving the quality and efficiency of hybrid work.
Hybrid And Cloud Work: 24/7 Service Availability
Cloud services are configured to make access available to employees anytime and place, centralizing the data and applications they need to do their jobs. Regardless of the devices used, any legitimately authorized user is provided with authentication credentials that allow them to access applications without going to the office or using remote connections to corporate servers.
We must consider all that in terms of security and workload for corporate IT, maintaining an on-premise infrastructure capable of satisfying a hybrid work-based organization. In most cases, the cloud has proved to be the most classic win-win situation. Employees can enjoy more practical and efficient work tools. At the same time, system administrators see the amount of work dedicated to managing on-premise resources significantly reduced to focus more on more critical aspects, such as user authentication and data governance.
Greater Scalability Of IT Resources
From a practical point of view, hybrid work makes the remote request for information extremely variable, making the cloud the optimal IT environment to provide the resources necessary to manage a highly discontinuous demand. Dynamically adapting IT resources on-premise is complex, slow and costly to deal with, while a few clicks are enough to vary the availability of IT resources available in the services of the leading cloud providers through a convenient control panel. The provider fully automates the provision of various services to users, whether remote employees or end customers. Thanks to the cloud, companies can, therefore, really think with a free mind, focusing only on achieving their business goals.
Collaborative Work Environment
One of the traditional limitations of work organization is that individual business lines tend to communicate little with each other, using tools and workflows capable of returning poor visibility on what is happening end-to-end within the company. The cloud favors the adoption of platforms capable of unifying the database and making it accessible to all employees, as well as having special tools for reviewing and collaborating on projects. The advantages offered by this perspective take on further significance if we consider the context of hybrid work, where employees work from multiple locations and see in the cloud the common collaboration space for their activities.
Cloud-based tools allow you to make many aspects of collaboration much more accessible, such as the ability to work simultaneously on duplicate files and share information on projects, focusing specifically only on operations, without having to worry about aspects such as versioning or backup of work. In other words, using SaaS services simplifies operations and greatly favors collaboration between stakeholders compared to traditional legacy / on-premise contexts.
Centralized Infrastructure, Decentralized Decisions
The remote working condition redefined the decision-making process for those teams who used to meet daily in the office. What were previously human relationships, with all the pros and cons of the case, have increasingly translated into relationships with data. Modern applications, especially cloud-native ones, allow you to analyze data with Artificial Intelligence techniques that favor the creation of insights and reports to support the decisions of the various stakeholders better, regardless of their operational condition. Thanks to the modernization of applications, making decisions becomes an increasingly aware and informed process, capable of making organizations truly data-driven in their functional logic.
Hybrid And Cloud Work: Greater Security And Data Protection
The escalation of cyber threats makes it increasingly complex and burdensome to keep servers on-premise safe. Both from an economic point of view and regarding the human skills necessary to manage specialized disciplines such as cybersecurity are increasingly in demand and unavailable. Cloud adoption solves many of these problems upstream, as the burden to secure an IT infrastructure falls exclusively on the cloud service provider. At the same time, companies can focus specifically on data governance and authentication of users authorized to access the services.
For similar reasons, cloud adoption facilitates compliance with data retention and processing (GDPR) regulations, as cloud service providers can optimize the necessary investments based on their business economies of scale. At the same time, it becomes increasingly difficult for a single company to guarantee the fulfillment of all the conditions required by the regulations in force, as they would need the stable implementation of legal advice, considering the difficulty in identifying highly specialized professionals in this area in applications. Digital.
Onboarding Of New Employees
Cloud adoption makes it possible to guarantee working conditions as homogeneous as possible for all workers active in the company, standardizing the workflows of the various business lines. After the necessary initial effort, determined by the migration, the benefits manifest themselves in multiple aspects, including the possibility of facilitating the onboarding of new employees and making knowledge less dependent on experience.
Always Updated Services
A key benefit of SaaS is complete software updates transparency for the end user. Simply connect and authenticate remotely to have the tools start working—no patches and no new versions to download, as all this remains the service provider’s responsibility. However, remote workers must pay close attention to updates to the software installed on the devices they use, first of all by applying, whenever they become available, the security updates of the operating system.
Technology And Innovation, The Cloud For Hybrid Work
In the context of hybrid work, the cloud favors experimentation based on an innovative approach, as SaaS uses technologies and functions that cloud development ecosystems natively make available to developers, like all services. Based on Artificial Intelligence. Consider, for example, the evolution of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), enriched by cognitive computing functions, which make systems increasingly intelligent, able to automate and improve the efficiency of relationships with users.
Thanks to the cloud, citing one of the hundreds of possible examples, it is now possible to implement advanced chatbots and customer care services that were unthinkable until a few years ago, facilitating an organization based on hybrid work, which does not require the necessary presence in the office of dozens of people. It would be utopian to think of achieving these results thanks to an on-premise IT infrastructure.
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