Running your e-commerce on Azure, AWS or Google Cloud is more than just a trend. Keep on reading to find out why your business will benefit from a Cloud Commerce solution.
Cloud Commerce is the right choice for you...
- if you need a low-cost alternative to an on-premises solution
- if you want to have quick roll-outs of products or catalogs
- if your IT has other duties
- if you want to conquer new markets
- If you need flexible scaling
- if you want to make sure your data is safe
Cloud Commerce is a low-cost alternative to on-premises
Some businesses choose to run and maintain their own IT infrastructure, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming, leading to growing internal costs- not only financial, but also in terms of updating the skill set of the employees. The initial costs can be high - and it doesn't get any better in the long run. By maintaining their own infrastructure, companies have to possess high purchasing power to afford the software and the constant roll-out of updates.
This is why Cloud Commerce has gained popularity over the years: It has a lower cost of maintenance. Cloud Commerce charges users based on a pay-per-use billing model and therefore, since you are paying only for the resources that you use, it is a minimal cost. This makes subscribing to a Cloud Commerce provider’s service much more cost-effective than running an e-commerce platform on-premises.
"Cloud-based technology solutions (as SaaS offerings) enable companies to make IT operations an operating expense (OpEx), moving away from a capital expense (CapEx). This eliminates the need for large upfront capital expenditures and replaces them with predictable monthly fees."
More so, Cloud Computing resources such as processing power, memory, storage and networking resources are rented, too, and also fall under a pay-as-you-go model, thereby shifting from CapEx to OpEx. This is different from traditional hosting methods where the resources could only be employed through individual machines, servers and contracts with single data center and networking partners.
Cloud Commerce enables fast roll-outs
Many businesses often launch their ideas and visions too late. Large and medium enterprises have generous budgets, they can easily acquire the resources needed to be the first at everything. The time-to-market (TTM), which is the time between conceiving an idea and the production launch, is a critical success factor. For selling products, e-commerce in general offers a fast TTM and therewith a first-mover advantage, which can provide higher margins before the price war begins.
"We were able to successfully go live with our first B2B online shop for the Spanish market within just three months." (IT Director at Teka - read the full story!)
Cloud commerce allows for rapid expansion into new markets, shorter innovation cycles, and Cloud servers don't require much initial set-up. The resources can be accessed quickly without the need for major investment in time and material. And by eliminating the lengthy implementation and customization phases, all these factors contribute to the ability for your business to launch faster. If demand decreases, allocated resources can be scaled back just as easy.
Cloud Commerce shifts the focus of your IT team
Many companies rely on their IT team to manage the whole complexity of the system operations and ensure routine maintenance. This causes the IT team to lose focus on strategic projects and thus, waste resources such as time, labor and costs on an area that could be more efficiently outsourced. An e-commerce solutions provider has the resources to handle every detail from start to end as well as provide 24 x 7 x 365 Managed Services Support. This means that despite engaging an e-commerce solutions provider, the business is still able to access and have full control of the web platform anytime, anywhere. So, there is no need to worry about the platform any longer and this allows the IT team to better focus on their core competencies, maximizing their potential.
Cloud Commerce offers expansion and growth
Expansion into new markets seems like an impossible task for many B2B enterprises because of the inflexibility of their e-commerce platform, the lack of regional market manpower, cultural differences, as well as the lack of financial resources. The flexibility provided by Cloud hosting allows companies to expand into new markets, even globally, without having to open new offices. Cloud hosting providers have data centers across the globe and therefore an office in Australia can easily expand into the US market without having to open an office there. Cloud hosting also enables the customization and integration of software applications according to the needs and preferences of the business. Authorized personnel can access data from any location, at any time and from any device.
If your challenges are within global expansion and you want too know how to handle the digitalization of commerce, check out this in-depth research, that also provides best practices: Benchmark report “The State of International E-Commerce in Manufacturing”
Cloud Commerce can scale your business to new heights
Many e-commerce businesses experience website downtimes on a regular basis, especially during high traffic periods such as Black Friday. Most times, their hardware, processing power and network operations just cannot accommodate the peaks in traffic the market creates. So much business (and long-term customer satisfaction) is lost! One of the main motivations why many companies are starting to adopt Cloud Commerce is due to its scalability. This allows the business to scale the resources based on their demand. The flexible scalability of Cloud computing further allows for easy management and control of the allocated power and resources to adapt the online shop, website or customer portal to meet changing market demands and needs. This reduces the likelihood of failure within the hosting service components during peak demands.
Cloud Commerce is heavily reliable
Lastly, Cloud Commerce runs on multiple servers, making it more dependable. Even if there is an issue with one of the servers, it will not hinder the progress and operations of the business since it is still possible to draw resources from the other ones. The backup of data and recovery solutions are way more enhanced within a Cloud hosting environment, so in the unfortunate event if something does go wrong, data can easily be restored. Cloud hosting can also be configured to be geo-redundant across multiple cities or countries, so if one data center was to be rendered offline, the critical business applications such as e-commerce applications, CRM or ERP would still continue to function normally.
And last, leading Cloud Commerce solutions are following the "Composable" principle. This is the evolution from siloed, on-premises e-commerce initiatives to a more integrated approach that covers the whole customer journey. It natively supports multiple frontends/touchpoints and allows the leveraging of the API economy.
If you are ready for Cloud Commerce, but believe that replatforming projects are inevitably disruptive, impact all areas of a legacy solution, drive up hidden costs and cause unpredictable delays, this free whitepaper will present you with three proven strategies to ease your mind!
