Businesses are increasing investments in Cloud Computing

The INE (National Statistics Institute) has recently published the results of a Survey on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and electronic commerce by businesses for the first quarter of 2015. We can find interesting data on the purchase of cloud computing solutions by companies with 10 or more employees.

This poses a favourable view of the sector, to which Intelligence Partner is dedicated, with a percentage increase in purchases of almost all types of cloud services by businesses. In general terms:

• 15.4% of companies acquired Cloud Computing solutions in the first quarter of 2015.  During the same quarter of 2014, the figure was 15%.

• 67.1% of these companies that acquired Cloud Computing solutions, did so by hiring some services that reside on the shared service provider servers, compared to 53.4%, which did the same in the same quarter of last year.

Percentages of the total number of companies that acquired Cloud Computing Services

In the first place, the statistics show a significant increase in the demand for email services compared to the previous year (take into account that the percentages are calculated on the total number of companies that acquire Cloud Computing services). Solutions like Gmail to manage corporate mail, which is the solution we work with at Intelligence Partner, are increasingly chosen by companies and sales have increased from 61% to 70% over the previous year.

However, the most widely demanded cloud solution in 2014 was not an email service, but file storage, at 69%; a figure that has fallen to 63% in the first quarter of 2015. The advantages that more and more companies are finding in this type of storage are mainly related to reasons of storage capacity and price. Google Drive for Work, also part of the portfolio of solutions offered by intelligence Partner, is an example of this.

In the third place regarding cloud services demanded by Spanish companies, we have database servers, which have experienced a slight rise from 54.7% in 2014 to 56% in the same quarter of 2015. Mobility, accessibility, cost reduction and the security of the systems are the factors that enable businesses to rely increasingly on cloud-based solutions. In this case, the Google Cloud Platform, with its range of services, is widely accepted in the market.

In terms of investment in office technology, the demand has also increased by 1.4% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Cloud-based word processors, such as Google Docs, or spreadsheets, also included in the Google Apps for Work suite, of which Intelligence Partner is Premier Partner, are gaining ground against traditional office productivity tools.

The fifth service invested in by companies is software applications used to process customer information. This group mainly refers to CRM solutions; a type of tool that becoming increasingly necessary for companies and the investment in which has increased significantly, from 23% in 2014 to 27% this 2015.

Intelligence Partner has extensive experience in CRM implementation and consulting services. We currently work with Salesforce  and SugarCRM, and we would be happy to provide advice on both systems and on the needs of your company.

The penultimate place is occupied by computing capacity to run a company’s proprietary software. At Intelligence Partner, we work with Google Cloud Platform, a development platform used to create, test and deploy applications in a simple way, using the same infrastructure used by Google.

Other solutions that companies have invested in strongly are those dedicated to financial and accounting software. Aware of the demand for this type of solution, Intelligence Partner has developed applications such as:

• Collectia, which helps companies to collect payments from customers in arrears efficiently.

• Cost Management Application, which covers the entire process, from submitting a note with the costs to automatically generating the bank payment file, including all validation and approval systems.

If you are interested in covering the needs of your company with some of these solutions and others, such as geolocation and Mobile Workforce Management, please contact Intelligence Partner; we are experts in providing advice on and implementing cloud-based solutions.

Source: INE Survey on the use of ICT 2015; INE Survey on the use of ICT 2014
More information: About Intelligence Partner; Gmail in your business; Google Apps for Work; Salesforce; SugarCRM;