Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Productivity and Efficiency

This report investigates the impact of cloud computing on business productivity and efficiency. It begins with an introduction to cloud computing and its growing importance in the IT market, highlighting its potential for cost savings and efficiency gains. The report defines project objectives and scope, followed by a literature review that explores cloud computing's characteristics, including resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and on-demand self-services. It discusses various cloud service models like SaaS and IaaS, and examines how cloud computing enhances business mobility and collaboration. The review covers benefits such as reduced IT costs, improved data security, and increased employee productivity. The report also provides real-world examples of companies utilizing cloud computing to improve their operations. Finally, the report presents the impact of cloud computing on the business productivity and efficiency.

Running head: Cloud Computing 1
Business Research

Cloud Computing 2
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Project objective..........................................................................................................................................4
Project scope................................................................................................................................................5
Literature review..........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8
Appendix.....................................................................................................................................................9
..................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Cloud Computing 3
Introduction
The point of this research paper is to describe the importance of the cloud computing and how it
may impact the productivity and the efficiency of the employees in the business. Cloud
computing is referred as the most promising and discussing innovations of IT in today’s
technology market. It is considered as the centre attractive approach for many organizations that
bring efficiency and cost savings. It entails a basic move in the way companies are offered with
computing resources. The provision is affecting computing in the form of product to computing
in the form of services. The technology of cloud computing is evolving rapidly. As per the
research organization IDC, the global revenue from public IT cloud services is increased by 21.5
billion in 2010. It is expected by this firm that it will grow by $ 72.9 billion in 2015 (IDC, 2013).
There are many IT players worldwide such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon are included in
enhancing and providing cloud services. Cloud Computing is at its starting level but it has been
found that in 10-15 years it will change completely (Greenwood, Khajeh-Hosseini, Smith &
Sommerville, I2011). The project objective and project scope will be discussed to make better
understanding about the entailed components in this paper. Literature review section will explain
the importance of the cloud computing in business with taking help of various authors for
support. At last, the conclusion will be drawn after analyzing the topic significantly.

Cloud Computing 4
Project objective
Each activity is brought out with a motive which should be gained from the beginning of the
activity. The project purpose of this research is to determine the force of cloud computing on the
business. The project objective of this research is defined below:
 To know about the importance of cloud computing in business.
 To investigate the impact of cloud computing on productivity and efficiency in business.
 To analyze the benefits and drawbacks of the cloud computing in the business.

Cloud Computing 5
Project scope
The project scope of this research is wide because it entails many aspects regarding cloud
computing. The description of the importance and the challenges of cloud computing will be
helpful for the reader to conduct further research after getting a clear understanding about it. The
project will help in making the insights for the kind of challenges for an organization that use
cloud computing. The impact of it on the productivity of the employees as well as on the
organization will be elaborate to know about the contribution of it to the development of the
organization.

Cloud Computing 6
Literature review
As per ( Mell & Grance, (2011), cloud computing is considered as the representation that enables
convenient, ubiquitous on-demand network way in to a shared pool of configurable computing
services such as servers, storage, applications, networks and services that can be increasingly
released as well as provisioned with least efforts of management. There are various factors that
make cloud computing more attractive in a different manner which are resource pooling,
measured services, rapid elasticity; on-demand self services and wide network access (Cloud
Security Alliance, 2009). The cloud computing provides the high-quality services to its users
such as if the customers require a network space and applications and server time, it would be
feasible for them to get automatically without making any efforts or interacting with a service
provider. These all facilities are obtainable on the network which can be accessed from all over
the places by various platforms, laptops, in-house devices and mobile devices. It has been argued
by Velte, Velte & Elsenpeter, (2010), that cloud computing has the potential to enhance the
mobility of the organization.
Along with above mentioned characteristics, it has been found that the next characteristics of
cloud computing are to how cloud services are managed and condition through cloud services.
The computing resources such as memory, processing, network bandwidth and virtual machines
are gathered by the service giver in order to provide various consumers utilizing a multi-tenant
model. Customers’ demands are majorly liable to provide these resources to them. Moreover,
they are provided elastically that defines the invariability in the supply. Hence, the quick
suppleness of cloud computing is allowed suppliers to scale rapidly the condition of computing
resources. The cloud services are also gauged in a intelligence that the cloud system control

Cloud Computing 7
optimizes report and monitor mechanically. It helps to make the services transparent and
predictive not only for consumers but also for providers. Furthermore, it has been argued by
Avram, (2014), that it assists customers to measure their requirements of computing resources by
an assessment of the real-time usage. There are a number of companies such as Apple, Xerox,
Instagram, Pinterest, Mediamath, Etsy, Netflix that have moved to the Cloud.
It has been found that there are some delivery models of cloud computing software such as
Platform (PaaS), Software (SaaS) and Service (IaaS). They are different in relation to the
structure of control of customer over security and cloud services. The delivery model of Cloud
computing is shown on how an organization handles with appearing security issues. SaaS
permits consumers to utilize only applications that operate on the cloud infrastructure of the
cloud. It shows that they are unable to handle and control the fundamental cloud infrastructure
involving storage, network, operating system, and servers. It also defines the individual
application abilities even though there is a probable exception in relations to the limited user-
specific application configuration settings. It has been analyzed that the integrated security is
considerably high and service giver is completely responsible for security. However, It has not
the ability to control and manage the underlying cloud infrastructures but it can manage the
organized applications. The model of IaaS offers the customers with the huge control over cloud
resources along with the security.
According to Chen, Chiang, and Storey, (2012), the productivity matters a lot in the business as
it is the only reason behind the growth of the company. There are various benefits of the cloud
computing within the business that facilitates in developing the proficiency and the productivity
of the employees because it allows employees of the company to access anywhere to get
information about the company. Cloud-based services enable the organization to meet the

Cloud Computing 8
demand of the business of any company by offering a number of services. It is most
environmentally friendly that aids cloud computing utilizes only the server space they required,
so it reduced their carbon footprint and saves the environment. The business efficiency can be
increased via cloud computing services as it facilitates to disaster recovery, the businesses that
have adopted the cloud computing services do not require to device complex disaster recovery
plans. The cloud service providers are more concerned towards handling the issues related to the
cloud computing services and make them fix as soon as possible. In the term of competitiveness,
it has been stated by Hashem, et. al., (2015) that the technology of cloud is allowed small
medium enterprise access to enterprise-class technology by giving a number of ERP solutions.
Along with that it also permits small and medium businesses to act rapidly in comparison of
established, huge competitors.
According to Hurbean and Fotache, (2013), there is an illustration of some companies that have
initiated their own journey regarding cloud computing. The Hartford is developing the process it
provides IT services by executing the latest infrastructure that involves a private cloud. It has
been analyzed that the hybrid model of IT will be able to increase the ability of the Hartford to
expect and meet the requirements of agents as well as customers. This company is expected to
decrease the costs in order to improve the availability system and the capabilities of the business
continuity. Apart from above mentioned example, there is another example of Delhaize America
that is the operator of the Food Lion. This company is operating big data and analytics on the
cloud to investigate the influence of local weather on store and category sales. This company has
learned with the help of cloud computing that heater weather decreases purchases of specific
grilling meats and enhances buy of magazines. These sorts of highlights will help the
organization to create perfect decisions regarding promotions, staffing, inventory, and pricing. It

Cloud Computing 9
is been using the SoftLayer cloud infrastructure integrated software by which the company
organizes the Big Data Project within two weeks in comparison of a number of months.
It has been described by Soofi, Khan, Talib and Sarwar, (2014), cloud computing services help
many organizations in every sector to determine what factors may affect them adversely. Pearson
is another example that uses cloud computing to transform the process it provides education
globally. The cloud has the potential to make able Pearson make more flexible worldwide global
hybrid infrastructure by using general processes and components, which make feasibility for the
investors to invest in new and more web familiarized commodities that offer measurable results
for learners. It has been apparent that the cloud journey is different for every business according
to the offering services to the customers.
The business efficiency of the business has increased with the effective use of cloud services.
Hung, Chang, Lin and Hsiao, (2014), suggests that companies should adopt this system to
improve the productivity of the business as it has a number of benefits. Reducing IT costs is the
main advantageous factor for the company as it assists in decreasing the cost of maintaining and
managing the IT Systems. Instead of buying most costly systems and equipment for the business,
the company can decrease the cost by utilizing the resources of the cloud computing service
provider. It can be done due to the involvement of cost of system upgrades, latest hardware and
software. It is not required for the company to provide wages for expert staff. According to
Avram, (2014), the use of cloud is easy for the company but it is essential for them to protect the
data and system in a sophisticated manner because it is the crucial component of business
continuity planning. The data of the company is saved whether it experience a natural disaster,
power failure and number of other conflicts. The data of the company in the cloud ensures that it
is backed up and prevented in a protected and safe location. Etro, (2009), states that collaboration

Cloud Computing 10
is necessary for the cloud environment that provides a business the ability to communicate in an
efficient manner. if the employer of the company is working on a project across different places,
it can be used to provide employers, third parties as well as contractors access to the similar files.
The company can increase its efficiency by opting cloud computing model that would facilitate
the company to share the records with advices.
It has been defined by Shuleski, Birsan,Cristea and Radu, (2016), that the global software as a
Services (SaaS) market is found as the leader of the cloud services that proposed to increase from
$55B in 2016 to $67B in 2018, achieving a complex growth annually at the rate of 8.4%. On the
other hand, Global infrastructure-as-a-services (IaaS), is found lower in comparison of SaaS but
it has been proposed to get growth from $27B in 2016 to $34B in 2018, attaining complex
growth of 10.27% in the upcoming period. As per Juan, (2015), it has been represented by the
cloud computing to the higher level of enterprise in spending on IT in 2015, even further than
other latest growth in technologies such as IoT and Mobile (Lebied, 2017). It is cleared that the
enlargement of Cloud computing model increased day by day and the support is given by many
organizations and government to help it in coming under the process of every company so that
the productivity and the efficiency of the business can be increased. IT issues can be resolved in
an efficient manner by using cloud services in the company. Cloud computing offers the ability
to fundamentally outsource operations IT work to a company that works externally. This helps to
shift the risks and associated burden with the work to handle IT infrastructures internally.
According to Rosenthal, Mork, Li, Stanford, Koester, Reynolds, (2009), there is a number of
multinational companies such as Netflix, Apple, Instagram and many more that uses it in an
appropriate manner in which they get access to automatic updates. It has been found that the
efficiency and productivity of the Apple Company and Netflix Company increased due to

Cloud Computing 11
automatic updates in which they do not need to consume the time over updating. It has the
feature in the clod computing of these companies that get updated on regular basis with the latest
technology. It is another example of Pinterest that uses cloud services to demeanor experiments
and manage to alter traffic levels at the time of maintaining the incredibly tiny team. It has been
found that Pinterest has designed to collective huge amounts of data; this company has turned to
big data in the form of service to store and evaluate the data. It has been argued by Pearson,
(2012), that as similar Pinterest, Instagram has turned to cloud computing to manage its
enlargement and to have huge scalability. It is the company that has launched a single computer
in L.A. in 2010. The server was plagued within a couple of hours and Instagram had to move at
that time to the cloud for maintaining the activity. After 6 months, Instagram was maintaining
around 3 million regular users of Instagram. Etsy is another example of using cloud computing to
increase the productivity of the business. It specializes in homemade goods. It has become easy
for the company with the help of big data to analyze the taste test features which facilitates
business to determine that which customers want what sort of homemade things.
It has been argued by Foster, Zhao, Raicu,and Lu, (2008), that along with the advantages of the
cloud computing in increasing the efficiency and productivity of the business, there are some
challenges and risks that may hamper the productivity of the business. Cloud computing is
completely based on the internet which refers the reliance on the connection of internet. The
main concern in the cloud computing is to how it prevents the risks and challenges of businesses.
According to Hayes, (2008), there are four threats of cloud computing that entails security and
privacy, interoperability and portability, reliability and availability. Hacking and various cyber
attacks on cloud infrastructure can have an adverse impact on different customers. These sorts of
risks can be eased by utilizing security appliances, data loss software, purchasing security

Cloud Computing 12
hardware and encrypted file systems to way odd behavior across servers. It has been analyzed
that it is hard to assess the effective costs included because of the on-demand nature of the
services. Assessment of the cost, as well as budgeting, will be hard to analyze except the service
provider has effective and comparable benchmarks. The service level agreements of the provider
are nor efficient to assurance the ease of use and scalability. Businesses will be unwilling to
switch to cloud lacking a firm service quality guarantee.
It is necessary for the business to have the influence of migrating in and out of the cloud and
moving service providers whenever they desire. Cloud Computing Services must have the ability
to incorporate easily with the on-premise IT. It has been found that the outcomes in common
outages are due to the inefficiency of the cloud providers. It is crucial to evaluate the services
with the help of provided third-party tools. Along with this it is crucial for the companies to have
the plans regarding performance, business dependency, supervise usage, robustness, SLAs and
dependency of the business of these services (CloudTweaks, 2012). Businesses can save
hardware as well as money but it is required for the business to focus on the spending more for
the bandwidth. It can be a little cost for lesser applications but can be considerably high for the
data-intensive applications.
it has been analyzed that the organizations are enchantingly placing a number of workloads in
the cloud whereas cloud technologies constant to advance. Because of these kinds of factors
organizations have a difficult time to keep up with the tools. Along with that the requirements for
expertises are continuing to develop. These sorts of challenges can be reduced by additional
training of IT as well as the staff of development. According to Armbrust, et. al., (2010), it is
integral for the company to have the proper IT governance that should make sure that IT assets
are executed and utilized as per agreed-upon procedures and policies. It should ensure that these