Marketing Essentials 2012Chapter 9:
Technology for MarketingeMarketing FeatureCloud Computing
Cloud Computing is virtual computing services offered by vendors. Many IT administrative tasks can now be outsourced through cloud computing services offered by Google®, Amazon®, and other upstart companies. For example, SaleForce.com offers cloud services for customer relationship management. Companies that subscribe can implement applications to support their sales force without the need for in-house servers and employees to do that job. Expense reporting, lead generation, and sales analysis can be performed by a cloud computing company. A pharmaceutical company can hire cloud servers to crunch scientific data from its scientists around the world. That same task would have required purchase of more than 20 computer servers. Thus, the benefits of cloud computing are: considerably lower costs, speed, and more flexibility as you only pay for services needed. Also, companies do not have to invest in capital expenditures for multiple servers and additional employees to provide those IT services. Innovate and Create
Have students brainstorm ideas on what tasks can be outsourced using cloud computing services. Compile a list of those options and then rank them in a priority order based on what might be most beneficial to a firm to least beneficial.  | 
