One of the most commonly cited benefits of cloud computing is the cost savings it affords businesses – both large and small. In fact, by cutting the costs of acquiring IT equipment, adoption of cloud by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) puts them vantage point to compete with their larger counterparts.

As more SMEs provide testimony to the new efficiencies cloud allows them to achieve, apprehension over adopting cloud services is subsiding, according to a report from Standard Digital.

With more businesses moving their operations to the cloud, the market increase in competition drive down service cost, according to Access Kenya Group Chief Technical Officer Raymond Macharia.

“We have seen an increase in the adoption – both in demand and range of services demanded,” Macharia told Standard Digital.

Initially, SMEs were adopting basic backup and storage, but uptake of services today includes applications such as enterprise resource planning, accounting, human resource, procurement, stores management, project planning among others, he said.

In fact, SMEs around the world and across industries are making major changes to their business models, products and go-to-market strategies – and are also competing with larger companies by investing in technology such as cloud services to improve operations and become more efficient, according to a recent survey from Oxford Economics research program, sponsored by SAP (News - Alert).

Almost two-thirds said they “strongly believe” technology helps them achieve longevity and sustainable growth. Overall, 35 percent of respondents identify themselves as early adopters; the figure rises to 42 percent for discrete manufacturers and to 47 percent for firms in North America.

In addition, less than one-third of respondents say their firm lacks the technology capabilities of larger competitors and only slightly more than one-quarter say they struggle to understand how technology can create measurable benefits for their firm.

Cloud adoption has been on a steady incline for the past several years and is expected to see its largest growth rate by 2014, TMCnet recently reported. In fact, cloud adoption has continued to rise in 2013, with 75 percent of IT decision makers and C-level executives shifting to some sort of cloud platform – up from 67 percent last year, according to the third annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey, conducted by SilverSky, North Bridge Venture Partners, GigaOM Research and 56 other organizations.

SaaS (News - Alert) remains the most popular form of cloud service, used by 63 percent of organizations, up from 55 percent last year. However, the fastest growth today is in IaaS, with usage rising from 35 percent to 45 percent, a 29 percent increase over the prior year.