5 (and More) Good Reasons for the Cloud Part 4: How Much More Productive Can We Become?

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And then there were only two left! At the start of our series of articles, we promised you at least five, if not more, good reasons for moving to the cloud. To date, we have highlighted the points of scaling, costs and speed and performance. Today we come to the 4th good reason, which is sure to make you really sit up and take notice, because it's about productivity. Productivity is not always easy to measure, especially when it comes to creative or "intellectual" activities. But that's not even necessary, because moving to the cloud can improve the productivity of your entire business in more ways than one. Are you not sure? Then read on below to find out whether the cloud can do what it promises. Enjoy reading part 4!


5 reasons for cloud - productivity

Good reason #4: Improved productivity thanks to cloud migration

There are many ways to become more productive. You can hire top performers - if you are ahead in the war for talent - because top performers are up to 8x more productive. You can work to ensure that your employees are more motivated and feel more connected to the company (companies with motivated employees have a 17% higher productivity rate. You can make sure that employees are not interrupted as often in their work, reduce the number of meetings, offer solutions for mental stress situations, completely remodel your offices - all this to enable your teams to work more productively. You can - and possibly should - do all of the above. Or you can simply migrate to the cloud for now. (By the way, the OECD has studied how and why companies use cloud services - that could possibly help you decide, too). 

In fact, according to a study by Office 365, about 80% of IT professionals said that moving to the cloud made them more productive. Employees who use cloud applications and can work remotely are up to 13% more productive than their colleagues, a Stanford study found. So, if you want to give your business a productivity booster, moving to the cloud is a good place to start. Especially considering that low productivity costs companies up to $7 trillion a year, there's a huge opportunity here.

But how exactly is the cloud going to help employees be more productive? 

1) The cloud shortens the to-do lists of your IT teams

This element is obvious: when you migrate to the cloud, many tasks that your IT team had to take on in an on-premise setup to simply keep your infrastructure running are eliminated. Whether it was server setup, part replacement, troubleshooting, incident management or making adjustments to meet the latest security standards, the list of activities was long. With a move to the cloud, such activities are shifted to the cloud provider, and your IT team can devote itself to tasks that generate high value.

5 reasons for the cloud - productivity - IT Tem's to do list

The Senior Tools Admin at technology company Igloo Software noticed the following after the migration: 

"Since we moved to cloud, our internal IT tickets have been cut by 50%. Instead of dealing with bugs or admin requests, I'm mostly hearing about new apps and features our users want to add, ultimately helping them do their jobs better and provide more value to our customers."

So your IT can also focus on making real improvements for your customers and colleagues. And: This will also have an impact on your recruiting. Because you will no longer have to look for the jacks-of-all-trades, but for people with specialist knowledge in certain areas. 

The cloud promotes focus and know-how

Your IT teams' to-do list is now tidier, but it's not just about freeing up time, it's about creating mental space: for new ideas, innovations, things that will ultimately drive your business forward. This may be a hidden aspect, but it still has a strong impact on productivity.

After all, the more tasks on the list of your IT professionals, the less likely they are to be able to devote the same passion and thoroughness to all of them. The error rate of people who try to do too many things at once increases by 50%. Not to mention that they experience more stress (which has a negative impact on motivation and productivity) and multitasking is not healthy for our brain and harmful for our IQ. Overworked employees - and this also applies to your IT staff - with long to-do lists are less productive, less creative, and less strategic than focused colleagues. So ask yourself: Where are your strengths, or the strengths of your IT experts? In hosting or elsewhere? 

Good to know: When you talk about productivity, it's always about the people behind it. And companies can increase productivity by investing in user-friendly tools, fostering a culture that also conveys security and stability from a psychological point of view, and reducing technical legacy - according to Google and Atlassian. Even better, these measures also improve work-life balance and reduce the risk of employee burnout. Good cloud products support all three aspects and thus provide a real productivity boost.

3) The cloud makes things easier for non-technical teams

In fact, the cloud doesn't just save IT teams time and work. Every team within a company benefits from it. This is primarily due to automation. Automating workflows, documentation and simple tasks relieves employees of work, reduces multitasking - and in turn opens up mental freedom. When employees are not buried in routine tasks but can use their strengths, they tackle things that are valuable for your company. And at the same time, these employees are happier, more productive, and more connected to their employer. According to Gallup's research, people who can play to their strengths on a daily basis are up to 6x more likely to be satisfied with their jobs. At the same time, they are 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit.

What also has a positive impact on the productivity of all your teams is the fact that in the cloud, updates are always small and regular. So instead of being faced with not recognizing half of your applications twice a year, there are always small changes that you quickly get used to (researchers have found that it's easier to adapt to smaller, regular changes than irregularly occurring large ones). And so all teams have access to the latest features and the latest security standards.

5 reasons for cloud - productivity

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4) The cloud boosts collaboration

87% of executives say the cloud is driving breakthroughs in collaboration - whether your teams work in a shared office or are spread around the world. Various studies also support this correlation. 

Collaboration drives perseverance, engagement, productivity, and high performance. And companies that embrace collaboration are five times more likely to be ahead of the curve in terms of performance than those that embrace siloed thinking and working. 

The cloud promotes transparency and collaboration between teams because they are connected and networked. Design, marketing, product and engineering teams can all work with the same system and easily combine it with other tools they each work with.

And another point that's been proven during the pandemic: The cloud makes it possible to work productively from any device. So team members can also access their programs from mobile devices without having to go through a complicated VPN setup - making remote collaboration even easier.

As Simon Gowland, Global Head of Enterprise Technology at Afterpay, explains:

"After we had completed the migration, people went on their own and downloaded the mobile app over the weekend. All of a sudden, they were proofing workflows on mobile. They didn't have to open their laptops on the weekend and they could still be effective, quick, and efficient."

According to Google, the highest-performing development teams are 24x more likely to use the cloud than lower-performing colleagues.

Case study: Fair

When your company plans to grow, and quickly, productivity is one of the key aspects. An example of this is Fair, a company that quadrupled its team in size in only 9 months (and was supported by Atlassian Cloud Premium). 

Fair focuses on making car leasing easier, more affordable and customer- (not dealer) centered. To make its organization more efficient, Fair chose Atlassian Cloud Premium. This choice paid off quickly and noticeably: many team members managed to  be 25-50% more productive.

Brett Lakey, People Operations Manager, explains:

"Everything from equipment to seating to software access for a new employee can be handled in one Jira Software ticket. One of my team members was able to cut onboarding time in half." 

But Fair is also fully satisfied from a technical point of view, as software engineer Michael Slocum confirms:

"When we had 20 - 30 tickets related to bugs each week, I could do it by hand. But when it grew to 90 each day, I couldn’t look at them all, let alone manage them...Now, I use Atlassian programmatically through the API to search, organize, and filter tickets at scale. It’s easily saved 25% of my time, and it’s a way better way to organize information."

There are many good reasons…

…why the cloud is a good choice. We're almost at the end of our series; only one "good reason" left! In the last part of our blog article series, we won't go "back to the future" but, in keeping with the motto, take a closer look at what the cloud can offer in terms of long-term security. So come back tomorrow and join us on our journey into the cloud(s)!

Enough good reasons?

Seibert Media is an Atlassian Premium Partner - we would be happy to support you if you now also want to move to the cloud. It's easier than you think! Just get in touch with us, we are there for you! 


Further Reading

Forget Less and Ensure Quality with didit Checklists for Atlassian Cloud Forget Less and Ensure Quality with didit Checklists for Atlassian Cloud Forget Less and Ensure Quality with didit Checklists for Atlassian Cloud

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