NO CLOUD - NO FUTURE?

Cloud usage in volatile times - how the cloud optimizes our future

In the area of controlling, local Excel applications can be found in almost every company, which are used and administered in specialist departments with great popularity. Simple, fast and immediately usable thanks to logical formulas. A tool that can be used by everyone and is available in companies. The productive and comprehensive cooperation of specialist departments, e.g. in corporate planning or in classic planning processes, reaches its natural limits after a certain time, even with Office 365, and the Excel devil slowly creeps in.

In our blog post we would like to briefly present five advantages and disadvantages of the cloud, look at the current trend and introduce the cloud-based business intelligence solution from CoPlanner:

Cloud - Advantages

Flexibility

Companies increase their flexibility in the area of controlling, as cloud services can be used flexibly even if the usage behaviour is difficult to calculate. Security, capacity utilization or technology risks are outsourced to the appropriate service provider.

Administration

The ongoing operation and maintenance of controlling resources is no longer necessary, updates, hotfixes, etc. are installed by the respective cloud provider and new users can be activated in a few minutes.

Data security

Through professional cloud security, the reputable providers guarantee a secure service according to the 24/7 principle. The data is stored in large, professionally protected data centres.

Scalability

Controlling software from the cloud is flexible and therefore scalable up and down within short periods of time. This means that cloud applications can be specifically adapted to the needs of the user or specialist departments.

Access

For technical reasons, "Controlling as a Service" enables new flexible working methods such as cross-location cooperation between employees and departments.

Cloud - Disadvantages

Trust

The company places its sensitive data in the hands of third parties. So it really has to trust them that the data is properly encrypted at all times to ensure anonymity and security.

Data volumes

These services are not well suited for extremely large amounts of data, such as complete backups of the company's internal hard drive, because the upload takes too much time, and permanent storage is more expensive than the one-time purchase of a network hard drive.

Environmental pollution

In the current situation certainly a thorn in the side for some companies, the data centers of the various cloud providers consume enormous amounts of energy and are therefore more harmful to the environment.

Internet

Cloud applications require a stable Internet connection in order to operate with high performance. Malfunctions or even failures can affect the regular operation.

Dependence

With Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) there is a 100% dependency, while Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers can be exchanged if the technology is the same (e.g. Microsoft, VMware or even CoPlanner).

So where is the trend heading now?

If you compare the current developments in companies and the state of their IT infrastructure, you can clearly see that the trend will be towards cloud services. Outdated systems generate high costs and the risk of failure is constantly increasing. With a cloud strategy, not only for controlling, companies are much more flexible, always "up-to-date" and can concentrate on their core business in a future-oriented manner. The IT technology is out-scourced to professional providers, so that the own company can concentrate on the optimization of business processes to gain a competitive advantage. Controlling from the cloud will be the future and companies should not shut themselves off from this technology, especially in volatile times.

2020 the cloud overtakes local storage media

Statista's graphic from the current year 2020 shows the clear trend towards the cloud.

In view of the current situation caused by the worldwide introduction of the coronavirus, the use of the cloud takes on a completely new significance in companies.

^{Tim Erben, Head of Marketing at CoPlanner}

As Statista mentions in its article "2020 the cloud will overtake local storage media", US cloud services are currently still leading the way, but they are also under heavy criticism from IT decision-makers.

Michael Kroker writes on April 20, 2020 in Wirtschaftswoche "Nine out of ten German decision makers see Germany as their preferred place to store critical company data in the cloud". European providers such as Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft Deutschland, A1 Digital or Gridscale offer attractive cloud offerings that also meet the desired data protection requirements.

Digital Germany continues to grow steadily and the German Federal Minister of Economics, Peter Altmeier, is planning a new efficient and competitive, secure and trustworthy data infrastructure for Europe called Gaia X, which will offer companies more security.

PDF Download - das Projekt Gaia X

Gartner analysts estimate that global revenue for 2021 will be around $278 billion, with application services and business process services accounting for more than half.

Operating Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management solutions in the Cloud will be the future. 80% of corporate IT will be moved to the cloud by 2025, writes Jeff Erickson, Oracle brand contributor at Forbes.com.

We will see if European companies are that fast, but the course is clearly set towards "intelligent controlling from the cloud", flexible, structured and innovative.

What we offer from CoPlanner

CoPlanner already makes its intelligent controlling software available to cloud providers such as Gridscale or Microsoft Azure, as these currently offer the greatest added value and come from German data centres. Other providers such as Deutsche Telekom offer similar services, are also not subject to the Patriot Act and are fully compliant with the DSGVO. We implement the software together with our partners. The customer finally decides where he wants to operate the controlling software. CoPlanner is 100% cloud based and can be implemented very quickly. Well-known companies already successfully use our planning, consolidation and reporting solution from the cloud to act flexibly, structured and innovatively in controlling.

The future belongs to the cloud - with its flexible solutions and services.

Request cloud consulting for controlling

Robert Duckscheer und Tim Erben - CoPlanner — Robert und Tim

AUTHORS

Robert Duckscheer has been a student assistant at CoPlanner Software und Consulting GmbH since October 2019 and supports in online and content marketing as well as in technical web implementations.

Tim Erben, Head of Marketing, has been working for CoPlanner Software und Consulting GmbH since January 2019. Prior to this, he was Head of Digital Marketing at pmOne AG for over 9 years and worked for various companies in the BI, CPM and ECM sectors.

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