14 ways to allocate your cloud budget next year

For businesses looking for a source of competitive advantage in today’s crowded marketplace, there’s really no better way to get it than through data center transformation. If you can streamline your company’s whole approach to data – how you store it, access it, use it, and manage it – you’ll be in prime position to get ahead.

For this reason, many business leaders nowadays are making the choice to invest in cloud solutions. It’s a proven formula for success in the 21st century – if you take your IT budget and allocate it toward moving your data out of your old legacy systems, you’ll find it’s well worth the investment. For every $1 you spend, you could easily reap $5 in benefits.

One question remains, though – what’s the best way to allocate that money? It’s not as simple as just tossing a pile of cash into the “cloud” bucket and calling it a day. To really achieve success with cloud migration, you’ve got to have a carefully orchestrated budgeting strategy.

Opinions vary on what exactly that means. It might depend on the type of business you’re running – for example, Spiceworks found that in 2020, larger companies will devote a greater portion of their budgets to large-scale solutions like Desktop as a Service, which enable them to cover a wide range of cloud needs in one giant fell swoop.

If you’re running a smaller company, however, that might not work. In fact, Spiceworks found that a grand total of 14 different types of cloud solutions are each responsible for at least 3% of the average company’s cloud budget. Here’s a breakdown of all 14:

• Productivity solutions: Looking to keep tabs on your employees and their workflow? The cloud can do it.
• Online backup and recovery: If disaster strikes, you’ll want to have cloud backups of your files handy.
• Email hosting: There’s no easier way to manage employee emails than in the cloud.
• Web hosting: The same goes for your company’s website – why not migrate today?
• Business support apps: Whether you’re looking to manage budgeting, planning, employee timecards, or anything else, there’s a cloud-based app for that.
• Cloud storage: Simply looking for a massive warehouse to store large amounts of data? That can easily be arranged.
• Infrastructure as a Service: Some organizations are deciding now’s the time to transfer their entire infrastructure. Are you in that group?
• Industry-specific apps: Are you managing patients in a hospital? Students in a classroom? Government employees? No matter what your line of work, there are cloud platforms for it.
• Communications: The cloud isn’t just for emails – it can make for easier instant messages, voice calls, video conferences, and more.
• Security solutions: There’s nothing more important these days than safeguarding your employees’ data. Luckily, there are cloud platforms for that.
• IT management: Looking to gain better visibility into how your employees are using your IT infrastructure? That can be arranged.
• Platform as a Service: If you want a far-reaching cloud solution that can offer a whole host of uses right away, you can’t do much better than PaaS.
• Developer tools: Looking to develop new software that can take your business to the next level? Cloud-based developer tools will no doubt help you do it.
• Device as a Service: Do your employees demand mobile devices they can use in their daily work routines? A DaaS model, and a cloud-based app for managing it, might be just the answer.

So that’s the list. The question is – which of the above cloud endeavors are most applicable to your needs? As you start shaping your IT budget for 2020, you may decide to focus on just one of these initiatives, or a handful of them, or maybe all 14. The choice is yours.

But if you need some help, we’re there for you. At Zones, we have a team of experts who know all about the challenges of cloud migration. We can use our battle-tested approach – starting with our Cloud Assessments, then progressing to a wide range of potential cloud solutions – and draw up a plan that works for you. With the right cloud strategy, your business can drive growth, innovation, and ultimately a more robust bottom line. Allow us to get you started.

This is just the beginning of what we can accomplish in the world of Data Center Transformation. Below, you’ll find a whole lot more.

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