Sure, the cloud has gained widespread acceptance and is on everyone's lips. But CIOs often ask – and rightly so – what’s in it for them in the cloud. Can the cloud help save money? While IT budgets remain flat or shrink and expectations from the business increase, leading CIOs have found a friend in the cloud.

With the cloud, you eliminate the CapEx spend in favor of a predictable OpEx spend. With the cloud, you have minimal capital expenditures. Think of it like renting rather than buying. Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, as well as Software as a Service all fall under the OpEx category. You can manage these costs easily paying for only what you need in a cloud setting.

Deploying IT Resources to Deliver Innovation and Business Value

CIOs can use the cloud to deploy IT resources to roles and tasks that add value. With a move to the cloud, IT resources no longer have to focus on racking and stacking servers, patching and upgrading over time. Instead, information technology professionals can focus on supporting projects that deliver innovation and support business objectives.

With the cloud, information technology experts can help create new revenue opportunities. A prime example is the creation of a data lake to better farm restaurant data, helping marketers and others in the organization recognize trends, guest preferences, customer spend, and the like. Innovation opportunities may also entail an increasing focus on mobile and creating friction-free, immersive guest experiences that promote loyalty.

Beating Out the Competition

Increasingly, the CIO’s role includes helping position the restaurant to win today and prepare for the future. As you expand, cloud economics make it easier for rapid scalability. You do not need to add servers; just increase your OpEx using extra cloud resources. Every restaurant location you open should not need an expansive (and expensive) hardware setup. All it needs is a connection to the Internet and minimal, lightweight devices. Data available via a restaurant network and the ability to analyze that pool of valuable information can also give you a leg up on competitors. Know your customers using the power of the cloud and make rapid decisions to meet each need.

Finding a Partner for the Transition to the Cloud

Today, in the razor-thin-margin environment every restaurant organization faces, it's hard to ignore the economics of the cloud and its many benefits. Reduce the need to continue to buy servers as you expand restaurant locations. Have the ability to scale at a rapid pace, while deploying information technology professionals where they add the most value. 

Xenial offers solutions to bring the cloud to any restaurant organization, without rip-and-replace, making the transition seamless and beneficial for CIOs, front-line employees, and shareholders alike.