Fact of the Week: Young U.K. Firms That Adopt Cloud Computing Services Experience 13 Percent Higher Job Growth Than Comparable Firms Without Access to Cloud Services

Source: Timothy DeStefano, Richard Kneller, and Jonathan Timmis, “Cloud Computing and Firm Growth,” Research Paper 2019/09, University of Nottingham.

Commentary: By providing remote access to data storage, processing, and software, cloud computing lets firms easily scale their computing needs and avoid the large fixed costs of IT infrastructure, which allows small firms to operate and expand more efficiently. New research into cloud adoption by firms in the United Kingdom supports this reasoning. Examining data from 2008 to 2015, the researchers found that young firms that adopted cloud services saw 13 percent more annual growth in employment than similar firms that did not yet have requisite broadband Internet access to adopt cloud computing services.