A study by Dell and Intel discovered that an overwhelming majority of IT and business people plan to "significantly or moderately increase use of cloud" in the next year. For the EMEA region, which includes Europe, the figure was an emphatic 78%, according to reports.
Meanwhile, analysts IDC have released a new report that indicates public and private spending in cloud computing will increase exponentially over the next few years (which will lead to a massive jobs boost world-wide and in the UK). More details here.
Companies are clear about the business drivers too. Nearly two thirds of those in the Dell/Intel study wanted to reduce their infrastructure costs, while improving IT organisational agility came next.
In the view of this column, cost reduction and agility are especially relevant when it comes to cloud-based, purchase-to-pay (P2P) systems. But the two are wrapped up closely together and the emphasis is slightly different.
With agility, it’s not so much about the IT organisation itself – but a transformation that can be achieved very quickly within the business. Organisations can do something radical about spend control and back-office efficiency through automating processes - within weeks rather than months. Processes accelerate, become more transparent and cost less to run.
Continuing with the costs theme … the ideal, state-of-the-art P2P system doesn’t add to capital expenditure because it’s cloud based and available from a browser. Cost savings arrive from those back-office efficiencies we mentioned as well as greater control and oversight of approved contracts that offer best value.
The other great news is that the best P2P systems will pay for themselves extremely quickly – which makes cloud-based solutions even more attractive.
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