When exploring the cost benefits of buying predictive analytics software versus leasing via the cloud model, there are several factors to examine.
But before we get to that, consider the following analogy: If you travel to Florida for one, or even two weeks, per year on vacation, does it make sense to pay for a mortgage and taxes on a property that’s going to otherwise sit vacant for the other 50 weeks of the year? Is that the best return on your investment?
Buy Only What You Need
One of the greatest benefits of a cloud-based analytics model is that you only pay for what you use.
For instance, let’s say a company’s executive team decides that it wants members of the purchasing department to use predictive analytics to evaluate all the company’s third-party contracts to identify possible cost savings and other alternatives in the market. Let’s further add that this, at most, is a six-week project.
Does it make sense for the purchasing department to acquire individual software licenses that the company will have to continue paying for even after the members of the purchasing team stop using the tools?
Providing predictive analytics for different types of employees and functional teams can deliver powerful insights and strong business benefits. These include identifying new opportunities to enhance revenue or ways to streamline operations and reduce costs.
While some employees will make extensive use of the tools, others are only going to be occasional or seasonal users.
Reduced Maintenance for Cloud Access
Another economic benefit of a cloud analytics model is easier maintenance. With on-premise analytics tools, new functionality and features typically require manual upgrades that result in downtime.
Using a cloud model, upgrades for predictive analytics tools can be done with the flip of a switch and conducted transparently for end users. This saves time for the enterprise while making it easy for employees to access the tools and functionality they need.
Cloud-based analytics also provide important ancillary benefits to IT organizations and companies that are looking for as-yet untapped opportunities to reduce operational costs.
With a cloud model, all hardware and personnel requirements shift to the analytics provider, thus helping buyers reduce their IT footprint and reallocate vital IT resources to other projects that deliver business value. This enables resource-constrained IT teams to focus their energies on those IT/business projects that deliver the greatest business value to the company, resulting in more productive use of IT personnel.
Another key consideration for using cloud-based analytics is time to market. Under a cloud model, end users can be up and running within a matter of hours, not days. This can enable targeted users and project teams to act more quickly on time-sensitive market or customer opportunities ahead of competitors.
Each day a company is able to make use of predictive analytics is time the organization has to solve business problems, identify new business opportunities, and optimize operations.
Try Spotfire today to see what the power of the cloud, paired with agility of analytics, can do for your business.
