When I look around at BlackBerry’s diverse community of customers – everybody from small businesses to globe-spanning institutions – they all agree on one thing: The cloud is the place to be. Some have been there for years. Others are in the process of moving there. For the holdouts, it’s no longer if but when they will make the transition.
The reasons for moving to the cloud are stronger today than ever before. Cost savings, of course, remain one of the most compelling rationales. Data centers are expensive to build and maintain, as are the software solutions that need constant patching and upgrading. Plus, the tech talent you need to keep a modern IT infrastructure up and running is increasingly hard to find and retain.
Moving to the cloud trades that heavy cost and managerial burden for predictable service fees and support agreements. Once they’ve made the move, few customers ever want to go back to the old on-premises world of ongoing hardware refreshes and software upkeep.
But while the cost advantages of the cloud are a welcomed improvement, I’m also finding more customers who are attracted to the cloud for another reason: Its power to drive innovation. This works on several levels. One is that organizations can take the resources they had been sinking into data centers – the hardware, the software, the IT staff – and redirect them to projects and investments that make a real difference to the business or agency. Things like product innovation, end-user experience, and business-process automation.
Innovation boost
Cloud services also give companies an edge in innovation by providing immediate access to the latest business capabilities that come with every online update. On-premises systems, by contrast, are tough to keep current. Facing internal resource and time constraints, companies often fall several versions behind their cloud-based rivals. That forces them to constantly play catchup when it comes to bringing innovations to market – not a great formula for driving growth and profitability.
Companies are also embracing the cloud because of the higher level of availability it offers, and the built-in backup and disaster-recovery capabilities. When it comes to business continuity, moving to the cloud makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen a number of customers who haven’t set up disaster recovery systems, so when their servers crash, their businesses shut down.
BlackBerry maintains well-established cloud environments to support our leading security, mobility, and productivity solutions, including CylancePROTECT®, BlackBerry® UEM Cloud, BlackBerry® Intelligent Security, and BlackBerry® Workspaces. And security in the cloud is a given with BlackBerry: We’ve built our reputation around great security and even offer a complete range of FedRAMP authorized cloud services for federal government agencies.
For customers who need help moving to the cloud, BlackBerry® Enterprise Consulting experts can ease the transition with dedicated teams to manage the migration and provide ongoing assistance with cloud updates and patches, as well as comprehensive security assessments before moving any apps or data to the cloud.
Take one step further with software-as-a-service
For many customers, getting extra support around their cloud solutions enables them to sharpen their focus on their critical business and end-user experience objectives rather than basic IT tasks. If needed, they can offload all kinds of support functions to BlackBerry, including help desk services and new-user onboarding, as well as broader capabilities such as managing mobile device fleets or helping design and maintain hybrid cloud platforms.
These deeper engagements provide customers with a full software-as-a-service offering that can help meet new and changing business priorities. This could include extending the cloud platform to facilitate mergers and acquisitions, new organizational structures, or the introduction of new use cases or apps. In many cases, BlackBerry will send experts onsite to help users fully understand and exploit new capabilities, as the success of any cloud deployment is largely driven by end user experience and adoption.
We’re also experts at helping customers leverage their cloud platform to deliver a common user experience across devices – a powerful advantage for organizations that are adopting bring-you-own-device (BYOD) programs that allow employees to use a grab-bag of personal mobile and desktop devices.
Unifying everybody’s experience and facilitating a productivity-boosting “zero touch” security framework can go a long way toward driving employee collaboration and innovation. Moreover, by delivering a compelling end-user experience, companies see better adoption of SaaS solutions, greater on-the-job satisfaction levels, and often a boost in retention.
Ultimately, moving to the cloud is about helping customers achieve the business outcomes that matter to them. When you consider the cost and innovation advantages the cloud provides and add in the “as-a-service” support to drive success, there’s no reason to not make the move.
Learn more about how BlackBerry Enterprise Consulting can help accelerate your move to the cloud.
