Cloud systems and SaaS (software as a service) platforms have transformed how work is done all around the world. Today, many organizations save considerable amounts of time, money, and other resources, thanks to such tools.
SaaS project management applications and business technologies streamline back-end processes, improve customer-facing systems, and optimize collaborative activities between workers.
For example, Microsoft Azure provides faster methods and less costly ways for data scientists and machine learning researchers of universities, companies, and independent groups. They can immediately start working on their AI development projects. Thanks to cloud-based platforms, they do not need to invest in expensive multi-GPU computers for developing AI projects.
Data collection, annotation, and dataset creation become straightforward tasks because of open source content and premium knowledge-sharing platforms.
By delegating repetitive, time-consuming, and tedious tasks to cloud-based services and SaaS tools, you can focus on things that can produce higher impact results for the company.
SaaS technologies make it quicker, simpler, and more cost-efficient to collaborate with your in-house staff, remote workforces, and crowdsourced resources. It allows your organization to expand your reach outside the country where you operate, enabling you to tap the talent that you need anywhere in the world.
As SaaS project management tools and data-sharing platforms considerably improve interdepartmental communications from the ground up, the overall productivity of your team is expected to increase.
This also boosts the morale of the company’s virtual workers and in-house employees because more of them won’t feel left out. In turn, it adds a new dimension to their professional growth.
As most workers notice considerable growth in their proficiency, you can expect that they’ll be happier and more motivated to work on their tasks and obligations for your team.
You can also immediately spot problem areas and bottlenecks that are limiting the company’s growth and expansion plans.
You’ll also be able to pinpoint specific issues and difficulties of each member in your team. Through a more streamlined way to individually approach your employees, you’ll be able to help them improve their skills, resolve challenges, and avoid similar drawbacks in the future.
Because of these benefits, you can help the organization drastically reduce downtimes and opportunity costs. In turn, what your company saves can be re-invested in higher impact campaigns.
You’ll also be able to help the company significantly reduce unintended expenses due to high attrition rates.
Effects of Cloud-Based Services by Numbers
Approximately 73% of all organizations are already using cloud-based services and SaaS platforms for a portion of their computing resources, or for at least one of their project management applications.
IDG Communications, Inc., in their 2018 Cloud Computing Survey, states that around 17% of public and private groups are expected to invest more in cloud-based tools and technologies over the next few years.
According to the report, enterprises allocated an average of $2.2 million for cloud-based services and SaaS subscriptions in 2018. This indicates a growth of more than 35% from the $1.62 million annual average budget allocation of enterprises in 2016.
For instance, 99firms estimated that the corporate SaaS mobile market could reach up to $7.4 billion by next year. They also stated that the largest publicly traded company in the USA’s SaaS industry today is Salesforce.
These numbers indicate that cloud-based services and SaaS platforms are likely here to stay.
4 Project Management Benefits of Cloud-Based Services Today
#1 Transparency
An organization’s executives, project managers, in-house employees, virtual workforces, and crowdsourced freelancers can use the same cloud-based services and SaaS platforms for their communication requirements and collaborative activities.
This provides each of them with more transparent ways to delegate tasks, comment on work output, review chat and email logs, distribute reports and memos, or notes from video and phone conferences, among others.
It also means you’ll be able to formulate much better counter-checking processes and quality assurance systems for the entire pipeline that your team needs to fulfill. This can ensure that each of the members in your team feels individually responsible for their work output and performance.
With this streamlined transparency also comes a higher level of trust between an organization’s inter-departmental workers.
This fosters quick and easy communication between managerial staff, in-house workers, and remote employees.
Remember, all these things can be quite challenging without modern-day cloud-based systems and SaaS platforms.
Also, everybody in the company can rest assured that there are back-ups for all communication logs and collaborative work records, unlike relying on the stability of each other’s workstations for storing part of the entire pipeline — which can be quite disastrous and expensive to fix when issues happen.
#2 Knowledge-Sharing
When all team members are using the same tool, they all work in almost the same way. More unified operations reduce the number of procedures and policies required, as well as the time required to train employees on using a number of separate tools.
The onboarding process can quickly become overwhelming for new hires who are introduced to a variety of new systems. SaaS and cloud-based solutions often operate in similar ways to tools they may have used before. In that sense, familiarity can reduce adjustment and training time.
Additionally, newly hired in-house staff and remote employees can start working much sooner on their hands-on duties and responsibilities, instead of spending a lot of time learning the ropes from a trainer.
Members of an organization can learn from each other through faster, more straightforward methods using the same communication tools and collaborative technologies. This promotes passive knowledge-sharing among an organization’s inter-departmental staff.
The time and money that you save can be invested in team-building activities that can enhance the performance of your employees and also promote a deeper sense of teamwork.
More so, passive learning between the members of your team and inter-department staff can foster more natural ways to develop trust, improve teamwork, and form long-lasting friendships. This results in lower attrition rates and much happier employees.
#3 Agile Processes
Using the same cloud-based services and SaaS platforms makes it quicker and easier for the entire staff to transition from one tool to another.
Even if you are switching to technology from another provider, many of these tools are designed with similar interfaces and logical workflows. By reducing the time that it takes for your employees to transition from an outdated tool to a more useful one, they can start fulfilling their duties and responsibilities in more streamlined ways.
In turn, this can increase the overall satisfaction of your employees with their obligations, especially when it comes to creative tasks. In most instances, this can increase their productivity and work output quality.
Again, because the members of your team and inter-department staff use the same tools for their day-to-day tasks, the entire organization can greatly benefit from passive knowledge-sharing benefits. So during these required transitions, you can expect your team to learn much faster as they can teach each other to correctly use new applications.
#4 Fewer Requirements
During downtimes, machine breakdowns, and software problems, a company’s team of project managers and administrators don’t need to spend a lot of time pinpointing the workstations that have issues.
If you have a large workforce and workstations with locally installed and served tools, imagine how long it would take to diagnose each workstation individually. Similarly, it takes time to set up machines for new hires and to configure each workstation whenever a new user is given access.
You can expect to spend a lot of time and money on hiring, training, and managing an equally big group of tech administrators. They would need to possess a broad knowledge of various operating systems, depending on whether your company is using Windows or Mac OS.
And since different systems come with different requirements for installing new software, your administrators would also need to be well-versed in dozens of workstation troubleshooting solutions that they’re bound to encounter while servicing each tool manually on every single workstation.
This whole process would have to be repeated periodically with each new system update or configuration need.
With cloud-based and SaaS solutions, that sort of labor is drastically reduced, as SaaS tools can be maintained across all employee devices from a single hub.
Conclusion
These are the most vital benefits and advantages that your company stands to gain from cloud-based services and SaaS technologies. In the next few years, these tools and platforms are expected to become crucial technologies for the success of organizations all around the world.
Keep in mind, time is among the most valuable assets of any company, while cost-effectiveness is a challenging target that eludes many organizations worldwide.
Take some time to research and choose the most suitable project management tools that can streamline your entire operations.
Using the right cloud-based tools and SaaS platforms can improve your organization’s chances for success this year and beyond. The immediate benefits will be improvement in your team’s overall productivity and work output quality. You’ll be left with more time to focus on important things that can benefit your team.
Ashley Wilson is a content creator, writing about business and tech. She has been known to reference movies in casual conversation and enjoys baking homemade treats for her husband and their two felines, Lady and Gaga. You can get in touch with Ashley via Twitter.