Cloud services - a platform for transformation
A sector struggling to keep up with the pace of change
For years, the not-for-profit sector has struggled to keep up with the fast changing pace of today’s technological world. Complex sign-off procedures, tight scrutiny of budgets/expenditure and often a lack of in-house IT resource to define a cohesive strategy or manage any third party contracts means that they are plagued by legacy systems, complacent incumbent providers and unexplainable rising costs.
IT viewed as a cost centre
As a result, IT is typically viewed as a cost centre as opposed to a platform that can drive transformation and change. Even the portrayal of a “third sector” categorisation would suggest a different approach is required by vendors and service providers compared to private and public sector organisations. Whilst this might apply to the commercial and financial negotiations and the overall sign-off process, charities are subject to exactly the same operational challenges as most corporates, if not more:
- Community outreach and fundraising has never been as crucial to many not for profit organisations in terms of brand and cause awareness. This demands a certain level of agility beyond the confines of the office and is pushing more and more services online to communicate with an audience in a digital capacity.
- Unlike most corporates, a charity’s user basis very rarely consists solely of employees. Fundraisers, volunteers and trustees provide invaluable input and still require access to certain shared services, albeit infrequently and via their own personal devices, which poses additional challenges in terms of security, accessibility and management.
The increased threat from online services and a geographically dispersed remote workforce is one thing, but when combined with sensitive data and regulatory compliance such as GDPR, security becomes a key consideration for most, if not all, charitable organisations.
Historically, such challenges would’ve been overcome through the adoption of disjointed in-house systems or point solutions, that are not only expensive to implement, but expensive to maintain, regularly requiring the services of multiple third party service providers, which only adds to the cost. Worse still, due to the approval process, such changes were left until the next round of contract renewals or board meetings, leaving the organisation hindered and unable to adapt with the agility of a standard corporate enterprise.
Performance improvements and better value for charities
The great news now though is that those days are well and truly in the past and the emergence of Cloud Computing as a concept has really paved the way for not for profit organisations to refresh, revolutionise and rejuvenate the role IT plays in delivering that all important “best value”.
As a solution, The Cloud immediately presents improvements in terms of redundancy, availability and performance……all features that are typically backed by service levels and can be enjoyed as a standard throughout the duration of the agreement, not ones that deteriorate over time. Not only that, but the very nature of the technology involves a public or private cloud provider delivering systems, applications or data securely across the Internet, which lends itself perfectly to the working practices of most charitable organisations.
Enhanced benefits of the consumption based model of cloud services
Beyond the inherent benefits that are available “off the shelf”, most Cloud services, can be tailored to align with the varying landscapes of the different charitable sectors or overcome some of the challenges we’ve already discussed:
- Controlled scalability – Previously charities have been bound by the capacity and capabilities of their in house systems, however the consumption based model of The Cloud makes it incredibly quick, easy and cost effective to deliver services to the organisation and the end users. New applications and online digital programs can be delivered with minimal upfront investment, both in terms of time and money and during peak periods, resources can be scaled both up, and indeed down, at the flick of a switch to reflect any change in headcount. Overall, empowering any not for profit organisation with a level of control and agility never really seen before.
- Increased security – Let’s be honest, most Cloud Providers operate out of data centre facilities that demonstrate greater security measures and credentials than most charities could normally afford. That being said, their standard “blanket” coverage may not always be suitable or sufficient, but these can always be tweaked to meet your charities individual needs and requirements. Additional services around Cyber Security, Anti-Virus, Endpoint Protection and Multi-factor Authentication are widely available and often more cost effective as an aggregated model than an in house investment.
- Better budget control – We’ve already touched on the budget constraints of the charitable sector and in the past, IT has not only required continual re-investment, but is often difficult to predict based on unexpected component failure, hardware replacement, software maintenance renewals and the unknown cost of expansion. With the adoption of Cloud, services are charged either based on resource consumption or number of active users and as such this makes the charges/invoices completely transparent, simple to understand and easy for the finance department to budget for.
Cloud is the way forward for charities
Overall, the versatility of Cloud Computing makes it suitable for pretty much any business, but the OPEX based model, flexible contractual terms, remote method of connectivity and outsourced management positions Cloud as THE way forward for the not for profit sector and bridges the gap between what has only typically been available in the corporate marketplace. Adoption of Cloud services is a journey though; one that still requires careful management, planning and updating to ensure it continues to work for the organisation.
Skye’s cloud – the perfect partner for charities
From inception in 2012, Skye Cloud invested heavily in a private cloud infrastructure that delivered enterprise grade technology at a price point that has fuelled massive growth year on year. Hand in hand with this, our experience, understanding and connectivity into the public cloud platforms, positions us as an unrivalled expert of cloud technology as a whole.
Whilst this might seem like a big claim, this is where Skye Cloud really differentiate from the competition and where charitable organisations really stand to benefit, because it is this versatility and platform independence that drives our approach within this sector. As we have already highlighted, the varied user base within Not for Profits poses several challenges with regards to the differing use of technology and differing access requirements, both in terms of frequency and BYOD.
To that extent, Skye Cloud build a tailored solution based around the specific use case for each organisation, department and/or user type and leverage the benefits and of the most suitable cloud platform, albeit private, public or a mixture of both to deliver the desired functionality in the most cost effective way.
Over and above the solution itself though, there are also a number of other commercial, financial and operational reasons to partner with Skye Cloud. For one, our Disability Confidence certification lends an empathetic touch to our approach and services, our commitment to information security means we are ideally placed to assist with your own Cyber Essentials Certification and the fact we have successfully helped over 30 Not for Profit organisations realise significant cost savings and achieve operational efficiency through the adoption of cloud technology, provides an understanding of the challenges, decision making process and overall objectives that guarantee we can replicate this success time and time again.
Skye Cloud work with over 30 not for profit organisations. We have developed an understanding of the challenges a varied and remote user base represent we can help your organisation improve operational performance and reduce outgoings - with no downtime or disruption. Our approach is to partner with our clients in the long term, we are disability confidence certified and take on not only responsibility for IT but could take an active role in supporting fundraising your organisation.
The decision to move to the cloud needs careful consideration, but if you are a Not for Profit and want to Join the In Cloud, there is only one choice; Skye Cloud.
Please contact us to see what we can do for you.
