Why more and more systems are going to the Cloud

A recent survey showed that 92% of organizations are already at least somewhat in the cloud, and Gartner projects that end-user spending on public cloud services will grow by 18.4% in 2021. Perhaps your company is part of this trend. We also see increasing numbers of our customers migrating their labeling to the cloud. At a webinar we hosted last year, 42% of attendees said they expected to put their ERP system in the Cloud. And almost 30% said they either already had, or expected to put their warehouse management system in the Cloud in the near future. In this article, we outline the three main factors we see propelling labeling into the cloud.

Companies are going Cloud-first

Quite a few of our customers select us because we offer a cloud-based label management solution. Take IAE as an example. IAE is the UK’s leading manufacturer of livestock handling equipment, equestrian stabling, steel fencing and shelters. For them, the prospect of getting their label management system in the Cloud was a key factor in their solution selection process. “We’ve moved quite a few of our systems to the Cloud. The fact that we could have labeling in the Cloud as well gave us a lot more flexibility in terms of integrations and APIs,” Daniel Mycock, IT Manager at IAE states. “When you’re integrating with many sources, this is the better way. Maintenance and software updates are just handled. It makes it a lot easier to manage and is more cost-effective.”

We see the same trend in our life sciences customers when they select Label Cloud Compliance, the validation-ready version of our cloud labeling software. For life sciences companies with global operations, managing labeling in the cloud offers them better flexibility and the option of managing processes centrally. As one of our life sciences customers stated, “For the global requirements we had, maintaining templates, approval and workflow management and granting user access – all of this would be much easier in the cloud than on-premise.” 

They’re looking for an easier way to handle supplier labeling

Another driver we see is the desire to have greater visibility into supplier-side labeling. Today’s manufacturing process often involves contributions from contract manufacturers and other third-party suppliers. Without a centrally-managed, standardized labeling solution, supplier labeling can be a bit of a black box. Label Cloud makes the whole process much more transparent. One of our life sciences customers sent their contract manufacturers blank labels and then had to use a manual auditing process at goods-in. With Label Cloud, they are able to have a standard template across the board, so that everyone printing labels on their behalf uses the same template.

For Würth, this standardization enabled them to gain a faster time-to-market. Simon Koch, Project Lead/Manager at Würth says, “From the purchasing point of view, our intention is always that the suppliers deliver the goods to us in a way that we can sell them – packed with our Würth boxes and branded with our labels. The easier we make it for them to print our labels, the greater the likelihood that they will use the system and ship goods to us in the right way. With NiceLabel, it’s one phone call, get their contact details, and half-an-hour later the supplier has access to the platform, can print labels and is ready to go and deliver goods to us in the right way.”

They want to reduce their system footprint

The third factor we see is the desire to reduce a company’s system footprint. This offers several advantages. For smaller companies, they can take advantage of enterprise-level software, without the enterprise-size investment. They’re able to improve their processes and efficiency, while still maintaining a relatively lean workforce. And for companies of all sizes, the environmental advantages of reducing their system footprint are considerable. A recent Accenture report on sustainable public cloud stated that migrations to the public cloud can reduce CO2 emissions by 59 million tons per year. That’s the equivalent of taking 22 million cars off the road.

Find out more about the advantages of moving labeling to the Cloud. Download our Label Cloud eBook.