Read the Leverage the Internet to Own Your Operations guide to learn more about how the cloud can give you the data you need to improve decision-making, deploy resources, and improve your productivity.

Like the internet, the cloud has matured and gained potency as a business tool. You’re already aware of its utility in remote data storage, access, and sharing. But the cloud’s data collection capabilities now make it possible for you to access not only information you and your team have stored there, but knowledge pulled from your processes, production line, and products. So how can you put the cloud to work to optimize that information?

• Leverage big data. One of the areas in which the cloud excels is efficient analysis of big data, says Gordon Feller, founder of the San Francisco-based international nonprofit Meeting of the Minds. The data is generated automatically and transmitted via sensors to the cloud, where the information can be stored and analyzed in real time. “It can be very helpful to the highly efficient management of an organization, because then you’re able to allocate the resources to fix the problem where it is,” he says.

• Put analytics to work. If you want to reduce your energy bill, for example, you want to look at the efficient use of the machine that consumes the energy. In a manufacturing or equipment-heavy business, predictive analytics and machine learning make it possible to create ideal maintenance schedules, map patterns, and catch problems before they ever occur.

• Tap the power Software as a Service (SaaS). If you’ve upgraded to a new operating system in the past few years, you’ve probably run into subscriptions for software that you used to own outright—and you may have resisted the increased expense that these subscriptions represent. But SaaS is becoming more than the software you used to install, maintain, and keep updated on your hard drive. Understanding the emerging capabilities of SaaS can help you to assess its value to your business. For example, cloud-based billing automation is evolving beyond improving billing accuracy and expediency to creating opportunities for improved customer interactions.

The information you gain from business intel and analytics isn’t limited to what is (or is not) working properly. The data can also help you to identify the conditions and circumstances under which equipment or people become over stressed, gain or lose efficiency, and generate higher or lower contributions to sales, income, product or service reliability, and customer satisfaction.