Transform Your

Business with Cloud

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The State of Cloud
Gone are the days of wondering if your business needs to utilize the cloud.
You must now decide how to best utilize it.

This is a byproduct of the evolution of the cloud and how it’s used. Cloud is
no longer seen as a final destination for businesses – instead, it’s a collection
of tools that can be utilized not just for the benefit of the business, but also
for a larger digital transformation. Tools such as AI, Internet of Things (IoT),
and DevOps work with cloud to improve business performance.

Many businesses recognize the potential of these capabilities and are

acting on it:
• 77% of enterprises house at least one app or part of their infrastructure
in the cloud1
• 40% of organizations plan on spending the majority of new funding on
cloud technology2
• Increasing cloud usage is a top priority for business and tech leaders3

These stats show a great shift from just a few years ago when many
businesses were just dipping their toe into cloud technology.

The focus that enterprises are putting on the cloud is warranted. In this guide,
we will examine the benefits that the cloud will bring to:
• Day-to-day operations
• Revenue
• IT teams
• Your ability to stay ahead of the curve – and your competitors

1
IDC
2
Gartner
3
Forrester

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 Enable Innovation
Making the cloud your central hub isn’t where the innovation stops.
In most cases, cloud is just the beginning.
Technologies like IoT and AI have opened completely new ways of
collecting and analyzing data to deliver real-time intelligent information
to customers. With its ability to enable innovation, velocity, and
agility, the cloud allows you to create new revenue streams that were
previously not possible, letting you quickly move current products and
services to the next level today, not six months from now.
Cloud opens up myriad opportunities with technologies like DevOps,
machine learning, APIs, microservices, data lakes, predictive
analytics, and bots to further innovate and make the most of the
information that businesses store. Cloud computing provides a new
set of advanced tools that allows any business in any industry to
truly innovate and disrupt. It is because of this that many businesses
are quickly making the move to the cloud.

You’re also able to focus even more on the rapid deployment of

applications with platform-as-a-service (PaaS) models. This type of
service removes the cost and complexity of managing servers and server
clusters so that IT can focus on the rapid development and deployment PaaS spending is expected to grow
of the business application of service. With this service, you are able to
build applications on cloud for cloud – cloud-native applications. by 23.7% in 2019 to $18.8 billion 4
4
Gartner

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SUCCESS STORY

Leading Pharmaceutical Company

Accelerating innovation for pharmacy benefits management

CHALLENGE & OPPORTUNITY

Venture-funded startups are disrupting the pharmaceutical benefits
management industry, creating fierce competition for existing front runners.
Our industry leading client sought to develop a platform that could drive
transformation and innovation, would work on multiple clouds, and that is fast,
fault-tolerant, and easy to scale.

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
• Led development of entity-based services around patient, physician,
prescriber, member, and other user experiences​
• Overhauled existing IT systems​
• Implemented Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF), enabling innovation and
virtualization to enable automation and continuous deployment of
entity-based services

KEY BENEFITS
• Increased organizational agility​
• Modernized technological platforms, enhancing the ability to process and
serve specialty patients and prescriptions through faster development of
new applications and services ​
• Reduced time to deployment of new apps to four hours with the
automated pipeline supported through PCF

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 Velocity of Business
Business does not move at uniform speed. It varies from
industry to industry, business to business, department
to department, and even day to day. But many legacy
systems are tightly integrated, which makes it difficult to
significantly change a single system without impacting
many others. This has limited the ability of some
businesses to keep up with the demands of customers.

Cloud-based applications provide the ability to accommodate

rapid change in response to customer demand. Cloud-based
infrastructure provides unlimited scalability to support the
most aggressive velocity of change without the long-term
cost of unused private data center capacity. Thanks to
its speed, cloud allows businesses to test the waters on
development at a lower cost while not incurring any long-
term cost if the test fails.

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Agility and Performance
The cloud doesn’t just bring speed – it also enables your business to be to track corporate performance in all of your customer segments. This
more agile and responsive to change. gives you the chance to build a portfolio of high-performing apps for both
front-facing and back-end processes.
Organizational Agility
A digital transformation is about developing corporate agility across more The cloud as a whole is highly scalable, which makes it agile and
than just technology. Cloud allows you to be more agile in the marketplace. capable of delivering high levels of performance. This is useful both
For agility to improve, people need the tools to adapt to ever-changing in terms of day-to-day events and large-scale, unexpected events.
customer demands. The ability to anticipate and take action immediately is
an inherent benefit of adopting cloud technology.
“Cloud services are powering
Organizational Performance
Performance can be measured by a variety of metrics, from corporate
customer-facing apps, empowering
stock value to customer ratings. Cloud’s ability to provide real-time sales teams, speeding software
KPI assessment is an important tool to quickly respond to internal and
external opportunities for performance improvement. Many software-as- development, hosting core business
a-service (SaaS) offerings in the cloud arena provide fully automated tools apps, and transforming data centers.” 5
5
Forrester

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 SUCCESS STORY

Leading Financial Services Company

Cloud reduces app development build time by 75%

CHALLENGE & OPPORTUNITY

Our client’s application development teams spent an average of four weeks waiting
on enterprise infrastructure to provision an environment for development. This slowed
down the ability to meet regulatory deadlines and transform to an agile delivery model.

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
• Automated environment provisioning with Amazon Web Services
(AWS) AMI process
• Onboarded pilot application to prove out full automated infrastructure process
• Built the solution with AWS, Chef, and Tomcat

KEY BENEFITS
• Reduced environment build time from four weeks to less than one week
• Automated 80% of environment build process, which allows staff to focus on
more meaningful tasks
• Saved application development team members an average of two hours a week
by eliminating paperwork needed for environment provisioning

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Secure Systems
Generally speaking, public cloud vendor offerings are more secure than
most on-premises data centers.
Despite that, over the past decade, security concerns have been the
main objection for many organizations considering cloud. But doubts over
public-cloud security are subsiding, and with good reason. Cloud vendors
take security extremely seriously because their ability to keep your data
safe is integral to their business.
The perimeter surveillance instituted by cloud vendors is automated,
built, and maintained by security architects with extensive cybersecurity
expertise to protect from external threats. These same security architects
work in tandem across networks and continents to tackle invasive
threats. They perform thorough and frequent system audits with vigilance
on access controls for both internal and external threats. The skill and
capability of these dedicated security specialists, along with the high
number of specialists, is more than most businesses can afford to
dedicate to security themselves.
Cutting-edge security capabilities – from facial or iris scans to machine
learning combined with AI to identify potential threat vectors – are
commonplace in the public cloud security portfolio. This level of
protection comes built-in for most public-cloud providers with all of
their service offerings.
Moreover, the cloud is complex and decentralized, with multiple storage
locations across the global footprint of the provider. This inherit complexity
discourages many cyber criminals from launching direct attacks on these
environments. All of these factors, combined with the fact that most
public-cloud providers have a direct connection to global government
cyber security threat centers, means most corporations will improve their
security protection by moving to the cloud.
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 Disaster Recovery
Conventional disaster recovery (DR) architecture – the policies and
procedures necessary to maintain vital infrastructure and systems
following a natural or institutional calamity – invites numerous issues
and concerns:
• High cost to build the DR sites
• High maintenance costs for storage and data backup
• Setup and management challenges, especially in remote regions
• Limitations that restrict recovery to primary or critical systems
• Obstacles hindering a verifiable recovery solution
• Low return on investment

A cloud-based DR architecture, however, eliminates the need for

physical on-site or co-located storage and provides for automated
recovery along with on-demand capacity/scalability. The result
is a dependable, flexible DR system subject to far lower up-
front investment and overall operational expense than a physical
corporate data center. This same architecture is also upgraded
along with the production environments at no significant additional
cost to the customer.

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Cloud Savings and ROI
It may seem strange to think that investing in
a digital transformation is actually an exercise
in cost savings, but it’s the primary driver of
new revenue for many businesses. Moving to
cloud technology is a key component of any
digital transformation, and one of the benefits
of moving to cloud is the cost savings. You will
reap savings in the following areas:
• Lower upfront capital investment for
computing hardware and software
• Eliminated cost of annual maintenance
contracts for software and hardware
• Reduced or eliminated cost of physical data
centers and communication links
• Reduced labor cost to install, upgrade, and
patch hardware and software
• Eliminated “cost of capital” charges, which
can improve profitability
• Reduced or eliminated missed opportunity
cost of time
Measuring ROI as a result of moving to cloud
is really not much different from the way
you currently measure ROI, but there are a
few differences.
6
Gartner
You will gain a reasonable ROI from your cloud
technology investment in areas like total new
business over time, or a faster turnaround for
both internal and external requests. However,
you will have a few new measurements to track,
such as a reduced missed opportunity cost
of time and a reduced cost of capital charges.
Some businesses will see significant ROI in
other areas like an eliminated unused compute
capacity cost and the associated overhead, 40% of technical
as well as a reduced data center footprint and professionals indicate
related cost.
that their organizations
The increased speed and agility will translate
into improved overall business revenue in a
will be spending the
more timely fashion. It is difficult to determine majority of new or
how much of the increase in revenue comes as
a result of using cloud technology compared to
additional funding on
other activities, but the ROI is shown definitively the cloud.6
in other areas.
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 SUCCESS STORY

Leading Managed Care Provider

Modernizing data and process management for a
mobile workforce​

CHALLENGE & OPPORTUNITY

Our client was seeking to empower its mobile workforce with modern technology.
The company needed help collecting medical case data, improving billing accuracy,
and routing cases. Acquisitions had brought additional integration issues.

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
• Provided strategic guidance, hybrid-cloud infrastructure, identity management,
engagement direction, Azure architecture, UX design, project management,
full-stack development, and app support capabilities to modernize processes
and technology​
• Developed modern SPA app with mobile access and automated processes​
• Utilized cloud-native Microsoft Azure PaaS solution to build a platform where the
development team could develop applications and work with the operations team​
• Worked alongside internal and offshore development team for
long-term upskilling

KEY BENEFITS
• Multiple-product-line system now handling more than 90% of company revenue​
• Empowered thousands of users for accurate data entry and reduced billing errors​
• Streamlined processes and task-driven workflows, including intelligent case routing​
• Successful transition to internal development, operations, and support teams

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 Why Cloud?

Business efficiency,
velocity, and ROI

The Benefits Await Ability to innovate

The reasons behind the ever-increasing popularity of cloud are clear.
The velocity, agility, innovation, security, and financial benefits make
the cloud the right choice for businesses in the digital age.
Reduced overhead
The cloud sets you up to improve the experience of the two most
important groups in your business: employees and customers.
Employees are able to work smarter, faster, and on more crucial
tasks, while customers benefit from a smoother, easier experience
Superior, adaptable
as they enjoy financial savings that are passed on to them.
security
The cloud isn’t just about making short-term or quick-hit
improvements that deliver just-in-time results. The cloud is about
ensuring that your business is positioned to succeed in an increasingly Improved data
competitive environment by enabling insight and innovation. management and
disaster recovery

Reassessments of
human and material
assets

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 Why Perficient
Cloud is an investment in efficiency and focus. Our cloud
service offerings provide the enterprise services and
collaboration tools you need to efficiently create customer
value inside and outside the company, as well as communicate
and collaborate with one another and your partners.

We leverage best practices crafted over the course of

nearly a decade of cloud implementations with Global
2,000 firms across industries. Our award-winning
partnerships with leading cloud vendors, combined with our
team of more than 300 certified cloud consultants, deliver
the business outcomes you need wherever you are in your
cloud transformation. From large organizations with legacy
hardware constraints to smaller teams with bandwidth and
resource limitations, we can help you at every point in your
cloud journey.

Our strategic focus and collaborative methodology

encourages a holistic approach to cloud. With that in mind,
we also provide advanced operational management, data
management, strategy, solution hosting, and monitoring
solutions. This allows you to rapidly deploy, identify, and
address issues, as well as continue to easily grow your
portfolio of technology solutions to meet your growing
business needs.

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 About the Authors
Victor Wolters
Director,
Strategic Advisors Consulting,
Perficient
Victor’s more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry
spans multiple management and technical assignments
in different industry segments. This experience provides
the foundation for his leadership in the application of
technology to today’s most complex business challenges.
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Joel Thimsen
Principal,
Cloud Consulting,
Perficient
Joel is a cloud expert and proven executive IT architect
with a passion for solving complex business challenges
through innovations in technology. For more than 10 years,
Joel has been leading successful solutions for Fortune 500
companies and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
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Let Perficient help
you on your digital
transformation journey.
Perficient is the leading digital transformation
consulting firm serving Global 2000® and enterprise
customers throughout North America. With unparalleled
information technology, management consulting
and creative capabilities, Perficient and its Perficient
Digital agency deliver vision, execution and value with
outstanding digital experience, business optimization
and industry solutions.

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