Cloud computing is a very trendy term nowadays in the marketing world. It’s useful to review the definition of the term and to understand its significance for our profession.
Although cloud computing broadly encompasses many types of services delivered from the Internet, I’m only discussing those that automate business functions in an immediate and scalable manner. All the other good services we often hear about (e.g., infrastructure as a service, platform as a service) are useful but not relevant in this context.
There are five critical things a marketer needs to understand about cloud computing.
Economics
You pay only for what you consume. There are no upfront IT investments. This transforms your expenditures from CapEx to OpEx, which always means easier approvals.
Choice
You can “try before you buy” to find the capabilities that best match your needs. If you choose a solution and ultimately decide something else is better, the transaction cost associated with switching is low. You haven’t purchased any software or hardware; and you haven’t signed your life away.
Maintenance
Deployment is fast. You can scale your consumption linearly because you no longer need to purchase big incremental chunks of processing power, storage, air-conditioning, and so forth. There are no software upgrades, patches, release cycles and other typical IT department considerations. Your own marketing organization deploys and manages the solution.
Collaboration
If a person has access to the Internet and a client device, he/she can work with anyone (or any number of people) on virtually anything at any time. Distance is no longer a barrier to collaboration. Terrific tools are now available that facilitate such work. For example, people can work together on a campaign, regardless of where they sit.
Communal Storage
You can store data and materials securely in a place that authorized personnel can access from any location, at any time. You don’t need an expensive security infrastructure to protect your information and intellectual property. For example, you no longer need an expensive VPN solution to tunnel through a corporate firewall.
In summary, if you are not taking advantage of cloud services, you are probably not as quick and agile as your competitors. These services enable speed, a critical success factor for any business.
