Cloud computing is not just super-high-tech companies. The cloud has life-giving properties that are helping many new firms build their business mostly or entirely on the cloud. Why? Because it helps them bring together business processes at a single access point and an ability to work anywhere from any device. New micro firms are also increasingly using cloud-based administration tools to keep track of their revenue. Read our user story on Conversion Garden, which runs entirely in the cloud.
One of the key benefits of the cloud is its ability to level the playing field. Because cloud removes much of the initial up-front costs, it allows small- and mid-sized businesses to compete with their larger rivals and in some instances to surpass them. Read our user story on how iMinds helped a Belgian startup move to the cloud.
Not surprisingly, the cloud is increasingly becoming a staple for start-ups, giving them entry to almost any sector, and an opportunity to disrupt the market.
Aridhia Ltd is a world-leading clinical and transnational informatics company developing technology and capability that supports the management of chronic diseases, precision medicine, and biomedical research through the use of biomedical informatics and analytics.
S’moove Software has developed Apodesk, a cloud software delivered as an online service for pharmacies, helping them save time and money.
Pharmacies use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to optimise the storage of thousands of drugs and other products, to automate purchases, as well as for invoicing and running loyalty campaigns. The downside? The Italian pharmacy market is packed with complex applications for running these services with just a handful of suppliers dominating the market.
Croatian SME, Agrivi, ensures cloud is an intelligent but affordable technology to significantly improve tracking, analysing and improving agricultural results. Its software as a service and user-friendly interface means farmers the world over can now make food production more efficient and sustainable.
Dutch on-line retailer, Wehkamp, uses the cloud for digital analytics to improve its customer experience and marketing campaigns. The results speak a language any shareholder can understand: a 271% higher sales-per-send ration for marketing emails, including a 68% higher click-through rate.
Baxters, UK food manufacturer, benefits from a private cloud and continues to invest in cloud-based applications to reach its business targets.
Wehkamp needed to improve its online retail services and use big data and analytics to provide their mostly young customers with a personalised and tailored online shopping experience, as well as improve profitability. The results of using cloud services for digital analytics, customer experience management and email campaigning speak a language any shareholder can understand: a 271% higher sales-per-send ration for marketing emails, including a 68% higher click-through rate
How SMEs and Start-ups are innovating in the market
Starred is a recent start-up with a new take on an old problem: how does a business find out what its clients are thinking? The service that it has developed, delivered as software in the Cloud, promises companies better information, gathered with less annoyance to their clients.
Lotus Bakeries is a family-owned and operated company that produces authentic biscuit and cake specialities such as delicious speculoos (a type of spiced, short-crust biscuit), gingerbread, waffles and cakes among others.
British luxury casualwear brand Crew Clothing wanted to shift away from traditional batch email marketing to something more timely and personal to re-engage its lapsed shoppers and create brand loyalty in the competitive clothing market. So it turned to a cloud-based marketing service.
Leading the way in technology adoption is a key goal for Europe as part of its drive towards a Single Digital Market. A recent Computer Weekly interview highlights how several European airports are starting to push innovation through cloud adoption.
Transmetrics brings Big Data to cargo transport industry in order to improve capacity utilisation. This award-winning startup has developed software predict future shipping volumes 2-6 weeks in advance, giving transport companies the chance to eliminate empty space before it occurs.
This success story elaborates on the work between CloudSigma - an innovative public infrastructure as a service provider, and Deutsche Börse - one of the largest financial exchange organisations worldwide in deploying a proprietary cloud-based solution to provide trading members with self-provisioned, on-demand access to Eurex’ s T7 trading architecture for testing and development purposes.
When a fire strikes, every second counts. Effective fire management is an essential part of fire-fighting strategies to minimise damage to land, property and loss of life, as well as safeguard the environment. Forest fires are particularly challenging for the south of Europe. Almost 7% of fire ignitions in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece result in 85% of burnt areas. Even countries like Germany, Belgium and Switzerland experience forest fires.
When Molplex Ltd - Translating targets into drugs set up in 2010 its aim was to offer high-quality services on a pay-as-you-go model. These services are accessed through powerful online drug design systems. This approach aims to eliminate the high start-up costs of inventing new drugs which acts as a barrier to scientists outside well-funded big pharma companies.
Today’s media landscape is a fully interactive and connected digital ecosystem with increasingly high demands on bandwidth, storage and integration of services to suit the needs of today’s media professional. The emergence of data journalism demonstrates how vast amounts of data can be aggregated to provide media organizations and journalists with excellent opportunities to make sense of complex information.
Copyright 2016 CloudWATCH2 has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme - DG CONNECT Software & Services, Cloud. Contract No. 644748
