A Guide on Cloud Automation Tools and Their Impact on Business Value
Summary
Get a comprehensive guide to cloud automation tools and their role in boosting business value through increased efficiency, scalability, and cost savings.
Cloud infrastructure is helping businesses improve their processes and productivity while optimizing resource use significantly. A testament to this statement is an Amazon report that says that cloud-solved organizations have been able to grow their revenues by as much as 43%. The same report also highlights how the use of containers, serverless technologies, and managed data has a higher business value impact for modernized organizations.
Several other ways help businesses derive more value from applying cloud automation tools to their operations. In this post, we’ll discuss the different facets of cloud automation, exploring tools and methodologies that have transformed the business landscape.
Table of Contents:
- What are Cloud Automation Tools?
- How Do Cloud Automation Tools Improve Business Value?
- What Are the Advantages of Cloud Automation Tools?
- Conclusion
What Are Cloud Automation Tools?
Cloud automation tools are a set of tools, functions, or software that can automatically perform tasks like installation, management, configuration, and upgrade of the cloud computing system running in an organization.
These tools offer extensive functionalities, including:
- Data backups
- Setting up a network
- Configuration of servers
- Identifying superfluous or unused processes and flagging them.
- Configuration assembly to prepare work environment for deploying workloads.
- Defining the items of configuration such as virtual machines and networks, containers, and more.
There are quite a few cloud automation tools available on the internet, including Salt, AWS OpsWorks, EC2 Image Builder, and more. These not only help reduce manual efforts but also ensure consistency, efficiency, and accuracy in managing and deploying cloud resources.
Also Read: Your Go-To Guide for Product Engineering Services
How Do Cloud Automation Tools Improve Business Value?
Here are the four key aspects of cloud automation that are pivotal in boosting business worth:
- Adoption of containers
- Building serverless applications
- Managed data
- Managed analytics
The true potential of cloud automation is realized when a business modernizes its cloud infrastructure and goes beyond leveraging cloud prowess for merely storage and computation.
According to reports, the businesses that achieved some form of modernization across all four pillars experienced significant enhancements across 22 KPIs that mark business value and growth. This highlights the transformative impact of cloud automation on businesses.
Below are a few ways in which cloud automation tools significantly enhance business value:
1. Efficiency
A good cloud automation tool enhances business efficiency. Operations like accounting or customer service can benefit tremendously from cloud automation operations with CRM and automated reconciliation and invoicing tools.
Furthermore, cloud automation tools significantly reduce manual workload by automating repetitive tasks, helping enhance employee productivity. According to reports, cloud automation tools can enhance staff productivity by up to 30%.
Additionally, a recent Harvard study highlighted that about 90% of the surveyed employees said they trusted automation solutions for committing fewer errors, getting more work done, and also for making faster decisions. This highlights the increased reliance and faith in cloud automation tools.
2. Scalability
Cloud automation can significantly enhance business value by helping it scale efficiently according to needs. Through automating repetitive tasks, the workload of clerical processes is reduced, enabling human resources to focus on critical tasks.
Additionally, AI-based cloud automation platforms can help create scaling plans and schedules that resonate with market demands and business preparedness.
Cloud automation tools can also be configured to respond to scaling triggers that are activated based on pre-determined thresholds. When these thresholds are crossed, the cloud automation solution kicks in and scales to load automatically. It also helps to conserve resources by reducing wastage.
3. Flexibility
Businesses can enhance their value for employees and clients by being flexible and responsive to current needs. For example, enabling remote access to business services is one of how cloud automation tools can enhance business flexibility.
Cloud infrastructure enables a business to connect all resources and services to a central location and provide centralized but regulated access to them. This way, the stakeholders do not have to manage their end of the services, giving them the flexibility to use the service as and when they like.
4. Employee Satisfaction
Cloud automation tools aim at establishing a centralized console for resources and data, enabling a single source of truth for use between every business arm. This eliminates data siloes and enhances collaboration between business horizontals and verticals, in turn improving employee satisfaction significantly.
The cloud automation tools are also equipped with collaboration environments and features, helping employees get more work done from their desks, therefore enhancing employee satisfaction.
Also Read: Top 10 Cloud Management Tools for Your Business
What Are the Advantages of Cloud Automation Tools?
Below are the key advantages of integrating cloud automation tools into a business infrastructure:
- Businesses can respond faster to market changes based on managed analytics generated in real-time.
- Cloud infrastructure provides enhanced security, which is updated frequently to cover the latest threats.
- Hybrid cloud management provides improved governance and control over operations taking place on the cloud.
- Cloud automation helps optimize IT infrastructure costs.
- Businesses can provide more competitive prices to consumers, owing to reduced data and IT costs because of cloud infrastructure.
- Cloud provides scalability to business operations, helping provide consistent and seamless customer experiences no matter the server load.
- The total cost of ownership (TCO) is significantly low in cloud infrastructure as compared to in-house hardware.
- Businesses can engage in agility and continuous deployment to enhance business value from their processes.
- Cloud automation tools provide opportunities for multi-cloud management for businesses that have different clouds.
- Smart backup operations in cloud automation ensure that a business always has its data secure and backed up.
Conclusion
Searching for the right cloud automation tools and implementing them in your business is an exhaustive process. In such situations, it helps to have a digital partner that understands your needs, industry trends, and the nuances of various cloud platforms.
Hurix Digital has many years of experience in providing managed cloud services to clients across varied industries, like banking, eCommerce, and more. They can help your business achieve high operational efficiencies through managed cloud infrastructure and other optimizations.
Visit our site to learn more!
Vice President – Digital Content Transformation. He is PMP, CSM, and CPACC certified and has 20+ years of experience in Project Management, Delivery Management, and managing the Offshore Development Centre (ODC).