By Bob Lund
Speaking Wednesday on ABC TV's Good Morning America, Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said, "We don't always get to pick the next disaster."
Fugate was referring, of course, to the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that shook surprised residents in the Northeast Tuesday, and the strengthening hurricane that could hit the Eastern seaboard this weekend.
For some businesses, these headlines are a wake-up call to get their disaster recovery plans in order. The good news: cloud services make disaster recovery preparations more affordable than ever.
Higher Stakes
Although disaster recovery was once considered an expensive insurance policy for rare but catastrophic events such as earthquakes and hurricanes, enterprises are expanding their plans to address all sources of downtime, including mundane power outages (the number one cause of data loss for small businesses, according to research from Aberdeen Group), application failures (the top cause of data loss for large enterprises), network outages and human error.
And downtime occurs a lot more frequently than most people think: more than two-thirds of large enterprises (69 percent) need to recover data on a weekly or daily basis, Aberdeen Group reports.
With information technology now such a critical part of daily business operations, even brief business disruptions -- which may begin harmlessly, involve only one part of a company, and not appear as a more commonly thought of "disaster" -- can have a significant impact on a business, not to mention its customers. Consider the consequences of a lockbox processor missing bank deposit cut-offs on behalf of its customers. More often than not, it is these "quiet catastrophes" that generate the most significant threat to a business and its brand, according to research from Forrester.
Quite simply, there is less and less tolerance for downtime in a 24x7 economy, warns Forrester's Stephanie Balaouras.
By making disaster recovery planning a priority, operations can protect themselves from disasters big and small. Businesses get it. Improving business continuity and disaster recovery is the No. 1 priority for small and medium-sized businesses and the second-highest priority for large enterprises in 2011, according to research from Forrester. Similarly, AT&T's 2011 business continuity study reveals a trend towards greater emphasis on planning and responding to potential threats.
The problem for many of these companies is that it's hard to make capital investments in disaster recovery capabilities when they are under pressure to cut IT costs.
A New Model
Cloud-based archive and document management services offer a way for businesses to safeguard critical content and protect against a disruption in service, at an affordable, transaction-based price that requires no upfront capital investment or ongoing maintenance contracts. What's more, with some cloud services, businesses can leverage an infrastructure that includes mirrored, geographically dispersed data centers for real-time business continuity and automatic fail-over.
More businesses are recognizing the benefits of incorporating cloud technologies in their disaster recovery planning. A majority (54 percent) of organizations surveyed by AT&T currently use or are considering using cloud services to augment their business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. These businesses recognize that cloud services offer tremendous affordability and functionality for business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
The Bottom Line
Businesses can't pick when they'll be impacted by a disaster. But they can control how their organization plans for, and responds to, these events. Using cloud services, such as those for electronic document management, can be a critical element to preventing a disruption in service, protecting client data, and safeguarding the organization's reputation.
Bob Lund is chairman and CEO of eGistics, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based document management solutions. Lund can be reached at 214-256-4610 or via blund@egisticsinc.com.
A blog dedicated to the presentation and discussion of ideas about the storage and management of information for financial services.
Showing posts with label cloud computing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cloud computing. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Changing the CFO’s Perception of AP
By R. Edwin Pearce
Historically, if you asked a CFO to tell you the first thing that popped into their mind when you mention accounts payable (AP) processing, they likely would have responded with some variation of “cost center.” The fact is, as a percentage of revenue, the costs associated with AP processing typically represent a small blip on the radar of most companies. But as companies have tightened their spending as a result of the recent economic downturn, that blip is now a significant opportunity.
More than 75 percent of AP departments report into the CFO, according to various studies. With CFOs keenly interested in cost containment and improved cash management, AP leaders would be well served to find ways to deliver strategic benefits to the organization. Notably, 56 percent of CFOs believe AP represents a more strategic opportunity for improvements than it did two years ago.
One reason CFOs are changing their tune on AP is that they are seeking ways to avoid further layoffs, while weathering the recession. To this end, most are tightening controls over employee spending and placing greater emphasis on measuring and monitoring the company’s financial health.
These types of activities are clearly in the AP department’s wheelhouse.
CFOs are looking past the traditional paper-encumbered stereotype of AP and focusing more closely on the tremendous amount of financial data that flows through AP. From this perspective, they see AP as a means to improving working capital management, reducing supply chain risk, and greatly reducing the incidence of fraud. Most importantly, CFOs recognize that AP can help a company improve its cash position by extending days payables outstanding, avoiding late payments, capturing early-pay and volume discounts, and ensuring that payments and orders are compliant with contracts.
At many companies, AP no longer is merely a back-office transaction function where efficiency and low cost of operations are the only requisites for success; AP processes are being more tightly linked with treasury functions to help maximize working capital management. This is part of an overall move to align core processes across business functions to support corporate strategic initiatives.
While this increased corporate standing is good news for AP departments, they must also be ready for CFOs to more closely assess their performance based on key criteria such as costs, service delivery, error rates, timeliness of responses to inquiries, compliance, and vendor relationships.
This makes it imperative that AP departments continue their automation initiatives. Not only does automation help AP departments improve on-time payment performance, reduce errors, slash costs and enable greater visibility into financial data. But it also delivers the quantifiable data on process performance that CFOs will require as AP evolves into more strategic partner for their organization.
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a provider of e-document solutions. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.
Historically, if you asked a CFO to tell you the first thing that popped into their mind when you mention accounts payable (AP) processing, they likely would have responded with some variation of “cost center.” The fact is, as a percentage of revenue, the costs associated with AP processing typically represent a small blip on the radar of most companies. But as companies have tightened their spending as a result of the recent economic downturn, that blip is now a significant opportunity.
More than 75 percent of AP departments report into the CFO, according to various studies. With CFOs keenly interested in cost containment and improved cash management, AP leaders would be well served to find ways to deliver strategic benefits to the organization. Notably, 56 percent of CFOs believe AP represents a more strategic opportunity for improvements than it did two years ago.
One reason CFOs are changing their tune on AP is that they are seeking ways to avoid further layoffs, while weathering the recession. To this end, most are tightening controls over employee spending and placing greater emphasis on measuring and monitoring the company’s financial health.
These types of activities are clearly in the AP department’s wheelhouse.
CFOs are looking past the traditional paper-encumbered stereotype of AP and focusing more closely on the tremendous amount of financial data that flows through AP. From this perspective, they see AP as a means to improving working capital management, reducing supply chain risk, and greatly reducing the incidence of fraud. Most importantly, CFOs recognize that AP can help a company improve its cash position by extending days payables outstanding, avoiding late payments, capturing early-pay and volume discounts, and ensuring that payments and orders are compliant with contracts.
At many companies, AP no longer is merely a back-office transaction function where efficiency and low cost of operations are the only requisites for success; AP processes are being more tightly linked with treasury functions to help maximize working capital management. This is part of an overall move to align core processes across business functions to support corporate strategic initiatives.
While this increased corporate standing is good news for AP departments, they must also be ready for CFOs to more closely assess their performance based on key criteria such as costs, service delivery, error rates, timeliness of responses to inquiries, compliance, and vendor relationships.
This makes it imperative that AP departments continue their automation initiatives. Not only does automation help AP departments improve on-time payment performance, reduce errors, slash costs and enable greater visibility into financial data. But it also delivers the quantifiable data on process performance that CFOs will require as AP evolves into more strategic partner for their organization.
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a provider of e-document solutions. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Seeding the Cloud
By Randy Davis
A recent article in Banking & Payments Industry Update #1447 greeted the new year with prognostications about the use of cloud computing by traditionally conservative stalwarts such as "large banks" (who have been reluctant to outsource anything). Another article in Document Imaging Report (Dec. 23, 2010) waxed prolific on the growing influence of cloud computing on enterprise software, citing predictions by Saugatuck "that as much as 40% of new software sold in 2014 will be cloud-based."
OK. We experienced similar enthusiasm with the advent of ERP, CRM and the paperless society, and we'll see how this cloud euphoria plays out.
Don't get me wrong. I like the cloud, and believe that it will endure as a viable technology for the foreseeable future. I also like the flexibility it can provide in the rapid delivery of "pay as you go" services. In fact, eGistics has been a "cloud player" for almost 16 years, and is strongly moving forward with new, exciting services rooted in a cloud infrastructure. Using a well-worn cliche, "Watch This Space" for upcoming announcements regarding a new cloud e-document storage management service offering, as well as a "Platform as a Service" offering that enables companies to quickly enable their own applications to utilize e-document capabilities.
In the lyrical words of Bob Dylan, "the times they are a changin'," and, looking back on the economy of 2010, we can only say, thank heavens! We at eGistics look forward to working with you to provide new, cost effective and innovative solutions that will enhance your own service offerings to your customers and users.
By the way, please take our poll at the bottom of this blog page to indicate your company's interest in using the cloud!
Happy New Year!
A recent article in Banking & Payments Industry Update #1447 greeted the new year with prognostications about the use of cloud computing by traditionally conservative stalwarts such as "large banks" (who have been reluctant to outsource anything). Another article in Document Imaging Report (Dec. 23, 2010) waxed prolific on the growing influence of cloud computing on enterprise software, citing predictions by Saugatuck "that as much as 40% of new software sold in 2014 will be cloud-based."
OK. We experienced similar enthusiasm with the advent of ERP, CRM and the paperless society, and we'll see how this cloud euphoria plays out.
Don't get me wrong. I like the cloud, and believe that it will endure as a viable technology for the foreseeable future. I also like the flexibility it can provide in the rapid delivery of "pay as you go" services. In fact, eGistics has been a "cloud player" for almost 16 years, and is strongly moving forward with new, exciting services rooted in a cloud infrastructure. Using a well-worn cliche, "Watch This Space" for upcoming announcements regarding a new cloud e-document storage management service offering, as well as a "Platform as a Service" offering that enables companies to quickly enable their own applications to utilize e-document capabilities.
In the lyrical words of Bob Dylan, "the times they are a changin'," and, looking back on the economy of 2010, we can only say, thank heavens! We at eGistics look forward to working with you to provide new, cost effective and innovative solutions that will enhance your own service offerings to your customers and users.
By the way, please take our poll at the bottom of this blog page to indicate your company's interest in using the cloud!
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Cloud computing's "green" credentials
By R. Edwin Pearce
The market for cloud computing has expanded quickly over the past few years, largely driven by its ability to deliver impressive economic benefits to cash-strapped organizations. But a new study finds that not only can cloud computing keep operations in the black, it also can help them be "green."
Pike Research reports that the growth of cloud computing will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In fact, by 2020 cloud computing will lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy expenditures, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, Pike Research reports.
“The growth of cloud computing will have a very significant positive effect on data center energy consumption,” says Pike Research Senior Analyst Eric Woods. “Few, if any, clean technologies have the capability to reduce energy expenditures and GHG production with so little business disruption. Software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service are all inherently more efficient models than conventional alternatives, and their adoption will be one of the largest contributing factors to the greening of enterprise IT.”
To be sure, cloud computing's "green" credentials and environmental impact aren't the top reasons for organizations to deploy the technology. But they are certainly key incremental benefits, particularly for organizations that list environmental sustainability among their strategic objectives.
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a leading provider of hosted document management solutions. Pearce can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.
The market for cloud computing has expanded quickly over the past few years, largely driven by its ability to deliver impressive economic benefits to cash-strapped organizations. But a new study finds that not only can cloud computing keep operations in the black, it also can help them be "green."
Pike Research reports that the growth of cloud computing will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In fact, by 2020 cloud computing will lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy expenditures, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, Pike Research reports.
“The growth of cloud computing will have a very significant positive effect on data center energy consumption,” says Pike Research Senior Analyst Eric Woods. “Few, if any, clean technologies have the capability to reduce energy expenditures and GHG production with so little business disruption. Software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service are all inherently more efficient models than conventional alternatives, and their adoption will be one of the largest contributing factors to the greening of enterprise IT.”
To be sure, cloud computing's "green" credentials and environmental impact aren't the top reasons for organizations to deploy the technology. But they are certainly key incremental benefits, particularly for organizations that list environmental sustainability among their strategic objectives.
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a leading provider of hosted document management solutions. Pearce can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Cloud computing growing up fast
By R. Edwin Pearce
The next year will be big for cloud computing, with the technology transitioning from “early adopter status” into a mainstream platform for IT. That’s according to IDC, a leading research and advisory firm, which ranked the maturation of cloud computing among its top IT predictions for 2011.
IDC predicts that spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30 percent from 2010, as organizations move a wider range of business applications into the cloud. Small and medium-sized business cloud use will surge in 2011, with adoption of some cloud resources topping 33 percent among U.S. midsize firms by year’s end.
“[Cloud computing] can no longer be invested in, or managed, as sandbox efforts around the edges of the market. Instead, they are rapidly becoming the market itself and must be addressed accordingly,” warns Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at Framingham, MA-based IDC.
Gens is exactly right. Organizations of all sizes are taking a hard look at cloud-based solutions as a way to avoid the hefty capital investments and ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs associated with traditional on-premise solutions, and to ensure their IT infrastructure remains up-to-date.
In addition to changing the way organizations access business applications, the growth of cloud computing also will bring mobile banking and payments one step closer to reality, IDC predicts. But this also is true of mobile applications in other industries, most notably healthcare and insurance.
What do you think?
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development at eGistics, Inc. (www.egisticsinc.com), a leading provider of hosted solutions for payments and document automation. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via e-mail at epearce@egisticsinc.com.
The next year will be big for cloud computing, with the technology transitioning from “early adopter status” into a mainstream platform for IT. That’s according to IDC, a leading research and advisory firm, which ranked the maturation of cloud computing among its top IT predictions for 2011.
IDC predicts that spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30 percent from 2010, as organizations move a wider range of business applications into the cloud. Small and medium-sized business cloud use will surge in 2011, with adoption of some cloud resources topping 33 percent among U.S. midsize firms by year’s end.
“[Cloud computing] can no longer be invested in, or managed, as sandbox efforts around the edges of the market. Instead, they are rapidly becoming the market itself and must be addressed accordingly,” warns Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at Framingham, MA-based IDC.
Gens is exactly right. Organizations of all sizes are taking a hard look at cloud-based solutions as a way to avoid the hefty capital investments and ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs associated with traditional on-premise solutions, and to ensure their IT infrastructure remains up-to-date.
In addition to changing the way organizations access business applications, the growth of cloud computing also will bring mobile banking and payments one step closer to reality, IDC predicts. But this also is true of mobile applications in other industries, most notably healthcare and insurance.
What do you think?
R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development at eGistics, Inc. (www.egisticsinc.com), a leading provider of hosted solutions for payments and document automation. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via e-mail at epearce@egisticsinc.com.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Cloudy with a chance of Microsoft
By Randy Davis, VP (rdavis@egisticsinc.com) (www.egisticsinc.com)
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, known for his eyebrow raising antics at company-wide employee meetings, is raising eyebrows again with his provocative and far-reaching statements about Microsoft and the cloud. On July 12 Ballmer told 9,500 attendees at the annual partners’ conference that “if you don’t want to move to the cloud, we’re not your folks.” The cloud, he says, is “inevitable.” Whew. Actually, even in the summer of 2008 Microsoft recognized that on-line delivery of critical business applications and services was, in fact, “a sea change” in the way businesses and corporations want to be served. On-line delivery was then and is now recognized as part of a “services wave” that is causing some to criticize the traditional software-based delivery model and on-premise execution of business applications as growing “antiquated.”
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Ballmer acknowledges what corporations have been concerned about since the cloud began to form: security and compliance. He implies that companies that get this right are “way ahead” in providing a viable offering to the market.
This brings up a good point in the use and selection of on-line services companies: Choosing one that provides an on-line service is one thing; choosing one that has invested the time, cost, expertise and infrastructure required to provide world-class security, and that supports a variety of compliance mandates, is quite another.
It is our experience that large, security- and compliance-conscious institutions are taking advantage of the growing maturity of cloud services, especially in the area of the management of documents, transactional data, payment images, and reports. As institutions become more comfortable with, and confident in, selective cloud providers, expectations will increase regarding the use of such information for fraud detection and prevention, data mining, analysis, legal discovery, research and customer service.
Is your company catching the wave, dipping its toes in the water, or staying high and dry?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The state of storage
By Mark Brousseau (markbrousseau@tawpi.org)
Randy Davis (rdavis@egisticsinc.com) of eGistics, Inc. (www.egisticsinc.com) finds several interesting trends in The 2010 State of Storage Report from Networking Computing.
1. The top planned storage project for 2010 is improved allocation
2. Forty-seven percent of respondents say insufficient storage resources for mission-critical applications is their No. 1 concern
3. Storage area network (SAN) vendors are responding to demands for lower-cost storage
4. Storage virtualization is growing
5. Thin provisioning is catching on
6. There is a significant increase in interest in cloud-based storage
How do these trends reflect your storage strategy?
Randy Davis (rdavis@egisticsinc.com) of eGistics, Inc. (www.egisticsinc.com) finds several interesting trends in The 2010 State of Storage Report from Networking Computing.
1. The top planned storage project for 2010 is improved allocation
2. Forty-seven percent of respondents say insufficient storage resources for mission-critical applications is their No. 1 concern
3. Storage area network (SAN) vendors are responding to demands for lower-cost storage
4. Storage virtualization is growing
5. Thin provisioning is catching on
6. There is a significant increase in interest in cloud-based storage
How do these trends reflect your storage strategy?
A welcome cloud during the economic recovery
In spite of hopeful signs that the economy is on the mend, the 2010 State of Storage report from Network Computing finds that the fallout from the recession has left IT execs without the resources necessary to store the rising volume of information required to support their business applications.
Nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents to the survey say they have insufficient storage resources for their mission-critical applications, while 30 percent say they have insufficient tools for storage management. Another 30 percent of respondents say they have insufficient storage resources for departmental/individual use. Nineteen percent say they lack staff for their storage requirements.
And -- regardless of economic "green shoots" -- the situation isn't likely to change any time soon: 34 percent of respondents say they have an insufficient storage budget to meet their business demands.
Against this backdrop, it's little wonder that survey respondents are showing increased interest in cloud storage services (34 percent in 2010 versus 19 percent in the 2009 State of Storage report).
With a hosted variable cost storage model, if your business struggles, and your volumes drop, your operations costs will be aligned with your usage, and you won’t pay for a “just-in-case” capital investment. The variable cost model also eliminates the need for capital investment (software licenses and hardware) or maintenance contracts; customers typically are charged a one-time load fee to archive documents. And when an array fills up, or a server must be replaced, it’s your service provider’s problem. Using a thin-client interface, there may not even be software to install, manage or maintain. In addition, variably priced storage solutions can facilitate more effective operations by providing scalability that would be very cost prohibitive in a traditional, licensed in-house system.
CBA Chief Information Officer Michael Harte spoke for many users when he recently told the Committee for Economic Development in Australia that, "I will never implement an internal solution for a common problem that I could procure on subscription across the Web."
With the economic recovery still gaining strength, the trend for 2010 will be the more efficient use of existing IT resources. That should make hosted solutions a welcome cloud during the turnaround.
Putting the kibosh on the soaring software maintenance and upgrade costs
Finextra reports that in a recent speech to the Committee for Economic Development in Australia (CEDA), CBA Chief Information Officer Michael Harte lambasted legacy technology vendors for their slow embrace of cloud-based computing and their apparent preference for solutions that lock-in users to a "never-ending spiral" of costly maintenance and upgrades.
"We're saying that we will never buy another data center. We will never buy another rack or server or storage device or network device again," Harte said. "I will never let any organization that I work for get locked into proprietary hardware or software again. I'll never tell my teams in the business that it will be weeks to get them hardware provision. I'll never pay upfront for any infrastructure and certainly would never pay for any, or rent any, infrastructure that I would never use."
Harte concluded: "I will never implement an internal solution for a common problem that I could procure on subscription across the Web."
With increasing demand for cloud-based solutions, combined with a general reluctance to pay hefty upfront capital costs, Harte's comments would seem to reflect growing dissatisfaction with the traditional licensed software model -- and its “never-ending spiral” of ongoing expenses.
Are you as fed-up as Harte?
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