Cloud computing has gained popularity in recent years, especially on an individual level, with applications like Google Drive giving everyday people a place to remotely store their photos, legal documents and other files. For financial services, many organizations are already on board. However, some small and mid-sized banks and credit unions may not have made the transition yet due to budget constraints or competing priorities.
While the delay to switch to the cloud is understandable, financial institutions should be aware of the myriad of benefits of cloud computing. Advantages, such as enhanced capabilities to utilize customer information, can help propel banks and credit unions forward and meaningfully enhance the ways they can approach their customer service initiatives. Consider the following when looking into ways your organization can utilize cloud computing to your advantage:
Access to Diverse Information
Transitioning from server-based technology to the cloud has a huge potential to open up diverse information in a way that can be collected, evaluated, and utilized to make strategic decisions. While a server-based platform may have information such as accounting and individual customer data stored in different places, utilizing the cloud puts all of this information into a platform that can be accessed more easily, cross referenced, and compiled. To executives and decision makers in financial institutions, this might look like a dashboard that shows new customer acquisitions, revenue, feedback from a monthly tracking survey and customer satisfaction scores all in one place.
Importantly, this also allows for easier access to diverse, yet related, data sets. If your customer satisfaction and monthly revenue can’t be viewed side-by-side, for example, it might be difficult to make a case for why your organization should focus on customer satisfaction. However, being able to view these data sets side-by-side reinforces the areas your organization is choosing to focus on, and helps provide clarity to the way your actions impact your organization’s bottom line.
Adaptability
A huge benefit of transition to the cloud is that service providers can adapt their setup to match the needs of your organization. In a traditional IT approach, your organization is looking at full stack servers and trying to consider both the current and future needs of your organization, often incurring extra expenses in the process. However, with a cloud-based solution, your organization can easily adapt and scale to greater needs and a higher cost point once you’re ready. Cloud service providers consider different price points and are incentivized to create an environment that will help them obtain and retain you as a customer.
Additionally, cloud technology means there is an extra layer of security with the host of the cloud platform responsible to make sure your organization’s information is safe and secure. Their security protocols are constantly improving and evolving to meet current demands, and may be less susceptible to cyber attacks due to a greater infrastructure that your own organization could have.
