Growing a business means more than increased revenues, it means increased costs too, especially in the data center. The larger an organization, the greater the data needs and the capital expenditures that go with it. As the IT infrastructure complicates, more resources are needed for upgrades and maintenance. These building costs and management often cut into the focus on innovation. But if there is no forward-thinking, no ideation, are you just “keeping the lights on” to your own demise?
On-premise data centers are built with custom configurations that require specialized knowledge, maintenance, and tools. They drain tremendous amounts of energy as well. They can be tweaked and upgraded to create incremental progress, but major re-structuring in response to business trends isn’t possible without a costly overhaul. This is where we create the “lights on” trap of needing more power, paying for increased functionality, and then needing more resources to maintain the new status quo.
In the early 2010’s, 80% of IT budgets were allocated for maintenance, leaving only 20% for growth projects. Yet, at the same time, there was a shift in organizational expectations of IT. Clearly an area ripe with possibilities for rapid growth, these IT teams were tasked with adding value to the business, not just keeping it online. This disconnect between resources and expectations created a major hurdle, but 2017 showed us that there is a solution – the cloud.
Hosting your data center in the cloud frees up your budget with lower upfront CapEx. Your operational expenses will see a shift as well, as your patches, upgrades, backup, and recovery move from manual processes to automated. Your need for maintenance administration decreases, thus freeing up your IT staff’s time to focus on productivity.
For most, the data center investment to date is far too significant to abandon. The hybrid cloud can offer a melding of your premise-based data and cloud functionality, allowing you to extend the life of your equipment while shifting to a hosted operation.
By shifting to a hosted solution, you control your operational costs while liberating resources that can be used for expansion. Your cloud data center, then, will also allow you to grow in a much simpler and more streamlined direction.
We can you find the solution that fits your business needs and goals. Whether it’s application integration, hosted phone, backup and recovery, or a total unified communications solution that integrates all of those, we’ve got the expertise to integrate it into your operations while minimizing downtime and wasteful spending.
