Cloud boosts business productivity adding billions to economy

New research by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Deloitte Access Economics has revealed the massive impact cloud services have on the Australian economy, delivering $9.4 billion of productivity benefits in the past five years.

While Australian businesses adoption of the cloud has grown rapidly in the past few years, the report suggests there are more rewards to be reaped by companies and business owners.

The Economic Value of Cloud Services in Australia report, surveyed over 500 Australian businesses to assess the productivity gains businesses have made from adopting the cloud.

Currently, 42 per cent of Australian businesses use at least one cloud service, with the number only expected to grow. 78 per cent of businesses have already increased their productivity by consolidating IT infrastructure and streamlining processes using cloud solutions. The biggest drivers to cloud adoption: improving customer experience (38 per cent) and keeping up with competitors (38 per cent). 7 out of 10 businesses said they have experienced direct benefits from using cloud services such as scalability and achievement of business strategies.

Eric Wilson – co-founder and CEO, of neo bank Xinja used AWS to quickly develop the technical capabilities to ensure his fintech was secure and reliable. Wilson says having the support of AWS allowed the company to focus on developing the disruptive features.

“For a startup looking to focus resource on core, disruptive capability and differentiators rather than core systems, cloud solutions are a no brainer. We have been able to get to where we are with a small and capable team.

“The technology overheads have been kept low and in line with our growth stage. Instead of investing large amounts of capital upfront building out a complete suite of technology, we have been able to build out in alignment with our strategy. This means that our technology cost base is able to be contained as we grow and develop great offerings for our customers,” Wilson said.

Co founder Greg Steel, the fintech’s CIO agrees saying AWS cloud solutions have allowed the startup to develop the same technical capabilities and securities of a major bank.

“And in the case of AWS, all while managing risk as we are required to as an APRA-regulated bank. It has enabled us to focus on developing the disruptive features that will distinguish us from other players, rather than building capital intensive data centres that will immediately become legacy and be a cost overhead over time. Xinja has no physical datacentre; instead we use AWS as a virtual datacentre – the hub of our extended network,” Steel concludes.

AWS Commercial Director for Australia and New Zealand, Adam Beavis said, “Access to cloud computing is changing the way Australians do business by opening up new market opportunities and allowing entrepreneurs to bring new ideas and innovations to life. Our customers are not only migrating to cloud for better compute power, storage, and security, but to use data analytics to improve their own customer experience,” said Beavis.

Deloitte Access Economics partner, and report principal author, John O’Mahony, said, “Our analysis shows there are clear benefits for Australian businesses that use cloud services. From a technology perspective, cloud can deliver cost savings, but it also allows businesses to be agile and elastic by accessing and scaling resources up and down as required. This means they can better manage peaks in customer demand, easily expand to new markets, and innovate with new technologies on a small scale before rolling out widely across the business.”