Initial cost savings get the attention in virtualization deployments, but the more important results are how it can bring about new business advantages.

There are surprisingly few studies that talk about the latter. Nevertheless, it’s important to cite key industry use cases where virtual technology has actually enabled companies to approach their businesses differently.
Here are some examples:
#1 Credit Union Service Organizations (CUSOs)
Operating as not-for-profit entities, credit unions long ago discovered that forking out the money to buy expensive servers and software for their core processing was something that many of them couldn’t afford. So—they banded together to form CUSOS where they all pitched in to fund a central data center and to run a single server with a multi-tenant architecture that featured segregated virtual systems for each credit union’s transaction processing. The value was immediate in operational cost savings and in delivery of value to credit union members. Without virtualization, it would not have been possible.
#2 Multi-tenant back office accounting for the oil and gas industry