Appirio's competitive environment: five forces analysis Threat of new entrants The Cloud Business currently has seen explosive growth, NetSuite has pretty a big market share of mid-sized companies wanting a cloud ERP to themselves. At the lower end of industry there are large numbers of cloud accounting products for SMBs, numerous companies have outgrown small solutions but aren’t yet ready for a full-blown ERP and many new software vendors are coming up with cloud products. In the true mid-market Enterprise software area there are quite a few companies are offering a compelling “pure cloud” solution, firms with a good name and existence in the industry. More and more companies in the software business and startups are entering the cloud business with compelling solutions. There are certain threats to the business of Appirio. Appirio definitely has a competitive advantage; because of reputation they have build over the recent past and their lost cost business model. Threat of traditional rivalry Software titans like IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and others exist not in the particular same business, cloud services are available with them alongside with all the traditional systems. Appirio aimed getting work from medium and large sized enterprises. Appirio was found in 2006, the initial threat from competitor was certainly there, as they had no comparison in terms of reliability with the other software giants. A major controlling factor of the company’s rivals was trust.
After reading many articles about Cloud Computing I saw the bright future for these types of cloud services. Aside from educating myself on this topic I feel that this could be beneficial to my fellow Computer Technology peers to address their client or employers cloud needs as well as people who are going to start a business and are looking at the options available to address their companies demands.
Cloud application is an online service that can be purchased online and will save customers from paying money for IT skills on a pc server of to pay upfront fees to install software on the pc.(Telstra-business-enterprise/cloud-services)
It is been predicted that by 2017 cloud data centers will process two-third of all business workloads(WINFREY 2014). Public cloud services like Gmail, Dropbox, iCloud and Flicker have been used by millions of users. Enterprise cloud services like Office 365, Cisco Webex and Github are some of the most used services among businesses.
however, Legacy ERP vendors are starting to use cloud based services to perform some functions of ERP, mainly those who depend on by mobile users. Cloud based ERP modules are built to be loosely joined, which can reduce the cost and difficulty of a Deployment. Currently some businesses are using hybrid cloud deployments in which part of the ERP software suite runs on premises and the other part runs on the cloud. The advantage of using SaaS ERP is that the system could start running, automatic upgrades and as well as reduction in hardware and support expenses. (SearchERP, 2017) (CompuData, 2017)
As part of my research report I select three vendors offering IaaS public cloud computing services, they are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace, which are leading cloud service vendors.
Many times you see these companies bragging about how they worked with big Fortune 500 companies. Also, you hear about how Amazon dominates the cloud market
Most of these companies are making the smart move of contacting IT companies, which can take care of their IT solutions and offer cloud based services. These include Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform
Therefore, this service has driven the company to hold competitive advantage over competitors. People are increasing the awareness of cloud service where everything can be done over the air. The company can create the value of its product by offering a place where community begins which increasing in customer lock-in strategy and generate more
The advances in information and communication technologies have paved way to cloud computing, which is becoming one of the essential social infrastructures. It is a new paradigm for storing data and accessing information and applications which are offered as on-demand services over the Internet infrastructure. It provides new possibilities for business firms as well as governments. In particular, organizations that adopt cloud computing services are expected to gain cost benefits from reduced up-front IT investment, maintenance and lower energy cost (Bose and Luo, 2011); while for the industry as whole, it will benefit from increasing economies of scale and reduction of unutilized capacity (Haag and Eckhardt, 2014). Further cloud computing offers opportunities for innovation realized through lowering entry and expansion cost for firms, especially small and medium enterprises; access high quality services, and fast deployment of product and services. Additional benefits include productivity gains particularly resources efficiency, flexibility and on-demand scalability (Armbrust et al. 2010) as firms concentrate on their core business while accessing high IT quality services from the cloud vendors.
Delivering a new application is now as fast as opening your internet browser.” (Salesforce, 2016) Salesforce has not only leveraged the ease and fluid maintenance of SaaS based solutions that organizations seek, but with multiple cloud based offerings, that eliminate the need for maintaining hardware and software infrastructures within an organization, They have also leveraged the Platform as a Service (PaaS) market. Enterprises of all sizes have adopted PaaS solutions like Salesforce for the simplicity, scalability, and reliability. PaaS applications also have the latest features without constant upgrade needs.
One of the main benefits of cloud computing is that the company’s resources are used in other different ways and reduce the overall costs. It eliminates the need for a physical hardware computer and replace it with an online storage or a software delivered over the internet. For instance, government agencies are shifting its government IT infrastructure into the cloud and launch mobile and e-services for citizens and businesses. As an example of cloud applications in some countries: In China a company named Wang Fu Jing has deployed cloud services to share supply chain information and implement B2B e-commerce with suppliers (Kshetri, N. ,2011). Another example is in South Korea: IBM’s cloud computing centre provides architecture, skills and pilot projects for banking, telecommunications, and IT hosting services (Kshetri, N. ,2011). An Indian bank named ICICI’s uses Zoho’s applications to develop services such as personalised insurance for diabetes (Kshetri, N. ,2011). Cloud computing offers many services to companies and government agencies; applications, operating systems and data are secured in the cloud environment rather than on a physical computer that is exposed to the risk of lost, stolen or hardware failure. Compared to client-based computing, cloud-based software is easier to install, maintain and upgrade. Furthermore, mobile applications based on cloud computing are becoming increasingly popular. Ericsson estimates that there
• Google — Has a private cloud that it utilizes for delivering wide range cloud services to its users for examples email access, document applications, text translations, maps, web analytics, and many more.
Companies can save a lot of money in their investment into cloud computing technologies that can help organizations take the burden of acquisition of servers, software, and people that are needed to stand up enterprise services, shared technology solutions, and deployment of customized or custom off the shelf solutions that are needed to support mission requirements of the enterprise.These solutions that are normally performed "in-house" within the boundaries of the organization can now be performed by outside vendors that specialize in niche technologies allowing them to provide cheaper solutions to their customers. These vendors have the resources, servers, software, and infrastructure in place that are needed to provide a specialized service to an organization. Companies end up saving more money because they do not have to do all the work that is required to set up the service, they just sign up with the vendor and outsource the service to the third-party that manages the technology that is delivered to their clients.
Some experts say cloud computing represents a change in the way computing is done in corporations. Wall Street analysts’ estimate that future global global market for cloud computing will surge. Those vendors that can adjust their product lines to meet the needs of large cloud computing providers stand to profit. Companies like IBM and Dell, for instance, are moving quickly in this direction. IBM recently invested millions to build a cloud computing data center in North Carolina, increasing its total cloud computing centers worldwide. Dell is also seeking opportunities in this market.
In today 's world, associations are moving from the universe of IT Infrastructure into distributed computing which is also known as cloud computing. Cloud computing is presently quick turning into the most noteworthy field in the IT world because of its progressive model of computing as a utility. It permits the decision makers to turn their consideration on the business as opposed to their IT Infrastructure. There is no organization that has not considered moving to cloud computing in light of its versatility, responsiveness, and deftness.