While the cloud has long been touted as a cost-effective catch-all for a business’s needs, it needs to be said that this isn’t always the reality…specifically, the cost-effective part. Some circumstances can lead to the cost of the cloud being too expensive for a business to wisely invest in it for its needs. Let’s talk about how the value that can be gained from the cloud can be gauged, and how this data can help you.
When Talking About the Cloud, What Does “Value” Mean?
Traditionally speaking, “value” and “worth” are more or less synonymous—value is just a means of measuring how much something is worth. However, in practice, there are so many variables that can and do influence this metric that it can’t be seen as a constant. There’s how necessary and needed a given item is by an organization or individual. There’s the scarcity of the item involved, in terms of supply and demand. Personal preference, sentiment, and again, so many variables all play a role in altering something’s value.
What You Can Do to Maximize Your Cloud Value
It’s important that you consider your cloud options in terms of their value—their costs, compared to what they provide you and your business—and seek one that offers more value than it ultimately costs. Again, there’s a lot to consider when weighing out a cloud option’s value, specific to the business in question.
How user-friendly does the business need its cloud to be? How scalable is each cloud that’s being considered? How much does security need to factor into the cloud’s capabilities to meet your business and industry requirements? How simple is it to get support from the cloud provider when it is needed? How much can you count on the performance of the chosen cloud platform? All these questions and more need to be answered before you can truly establish the value you’re seeking.
Once you have this information, you can do some comparison shopping, communicating with various cloud vendors and providers until you find the best match between your needs and their costs. This can be accomplished through the use of something called the value curve, which is effectively a bell curve that helps you establish the level of investment that will help you identify where your investment in the cloud brings the most value to your business. This tool gives you a more direct comparison to consider as you compare different service providers.
However, it will take time, and is this really important enough to supersede all of your other business-essential tasks?
We Can Take On the Responsibility of Comparison Shopping on Your Behalf
If we were to be your managed service provider, you would no longer need to deal with your vendors—including your cloud service providers—as we would manage them and work with them on your behalf to maximize the value they provide. Give us a call today to learn more at (954) 575-3992.
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