Cloud solutions provide significant benefits to companies of all sizes, but a recent study shows that less than 10 percent of organizations believe their existing IT infrastructure is fully prepared to address the proliferation of cloud computing, mobile devices, social media and data analytics. The cloud is critical to their businesses’ success for a number of reasons. Here are five of them: 

1. Cloud offers better insight. In a world awash in structured and, increasingly, unstructured data, 54% of leading organizations are using analytics to derive insights from big data, which helps them target customers and product opportunities more effectively. 

2. Cloud helps collaboration. Cloud allows work to be accessed from multiple devices and from anywhere, which in turns makes it much easier for teams to collaborate on shared data. 

3. Cloud drives better engagement. Cloud is often seen as the most effective means of forging a tighter link with the customer. 

4. Speed! Fifty-two percent of leading organizations are turning to the cloud to drive more rapid innovation in products and services.
  
5. Cloud benefits are measurable and pay for themselves. From efficiency gains to improved employee mobility, leading organizations are able to measure significant benefits from their cloud investments.