Companies are increasingly managing content in the cloud, driven by the need to reduce costs, boost agility, and operate in new, more digital ways. But what does it take to pursue a successful cloud-based content management strategy? Below we’ve highlighted some stats and insights from our infographic “Embrace a Cloud Architecture”—one of the 7 habits of modern content management.

You can download the entire infographic here or visit the IT Strategist’s Guide to Transforming ECM for more expert advice and real-world examples.

Organizations are moving content to the cloud

When it comes to managing content in the cloud, it’s not a question of if, but when. A 2017 survey by Gartner found that 39% of organizations are primarily deploying enterprise content management (ECM) using a cloud model.¹ And by 2021, Gartner predicts that more than half of those organizations will have adopted a purely cloud-based strategy. Organizations of all sizes and industries—from financial services, to manufacturing, to healthcare and government—have migrated mission-critical content to the cloud.

Content services in a virtual private cloud

There are two basic approaches to managing content in the cloud. Many companies run content services in a virtual private cloud (VPC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. This platform-as-a-service (PaaS) approach makes ECM capabilities available to any enterprise application through open APIs. You can meet diverse business requirements quickly, cost-effectively, and with greater agility. SaaS solutions, while acceptable for some use cases, can be hard to integrate and harder still to customize and extend.

Betting big on business transformation

Cloud-based content services are a proven way to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). In fact, budget cuts and data center closures are common drivers for migrating content to the cloud. But the biggest payoff for many companies is business transformation. Delivering ECM in the cloud opens up opportunities for innovation that simply aren’t possible with on-premises deployments. You can modernize user experiences; support digital processes; facilitate knowledge-sharing; and use machine learning and other AI services against a central content store.

The importance of a cloud-native platform

You can’t realize all the benefits of the cloud by lifting-and-shifting a monolithic legacy ECM system. Instead, look for a content services platform that is purpose-built for the cloud—like Alfresco Content Services. These products have a modern microservices-based architecture that fully leverages the cloud’s unique advantages, including the agility and cost-efficiency of elastic scalability. Other factors to consider include partnerships with leading cloud providers, benchmarks for cloud performance, and the availability of a reference architecture—such as Alfresco’s AWS Quick Start—to jumpstart your deployment.

< 6 months payback for Alfresco on AWS

Accelerated time to value is a major advantage for Alfresco customers. A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study found that running Alfresco Content Services on AWS can pay for itself in less than 6 months.² For a composite customer, average savings amounted to $4.1 million over 3 years for a 148% ROI. Lower expenditures on hardware, software, support, content distribution, and content re-creation contributed to the solution’s positive financial impact. For a detailed look at the cost savings and business benefits of running Alfresco Content Services on AWS, you can download the Forrester Total Economic Impact study here.

Liberty Mutual to save $21 million with Alfresco on AWS

Liberty Mutual expects to save $21 million over 5 years with Alfresco Content Services running on AWS. SVP & CIO of Liberty Mutual’s Global Specialty unit, Mojgan Lefebvre says the cloud-based Alfresco solution will lower paper, printing, and storage costs; reduce time to market; and increase productivity for the insurer’s global workforce. The company currently manages 500,000 documents in the cloud and expects to manage 300 million by the end of 2018. To learn more about Liberty Mutual’s digital transformation using Alfresco on AWS, read our recent interview with Mojgan or listen to her story in this on-demand webinar.

Download the infographic