Productivity is the key to success. It’s also quite a challenge for small businesses. Fortunately, this is something technology can help you with.
When you own a business, you must make sure that you’re always leveraging the most effective and economical solutions possible. One of these solutions is cloud computing. While most business owners have heard of it, there are still many who don’t truly understand how useful it could be for their business. Some business owners have even thought that this was simply a passing trend. Of course, this is only one of the many types of technology that’s here to stay and transform today’s business world as we know it. This is something you must consider before your business gets left behind. Here are several reasons to back this statement and make you think twice.
More Flexibility and Agility
Business says today’s business landscape is continually changing. This makes it interesting to see how some companies can adapt while others wait until it’s too late to attempt to do so. Of course, there will always be certain parts of your business that are more challenging to adapt than other parts, you must still make sure that your business always remains as flexible as possible. One of the best ways of doing this is by using cloud computing. With it, you can adapt to meet the changing market conditions. This is something that isn’t always possible when using on-site, physical solutions. Besides adapting to external conditions, the cloud will also help you quickly respond to any internal demands placed on your business. This is because when your user demand increases, cloud services can rise to meet this growing demand. Once the demand decreases again, you can easily decrease your cloud too. This helps eliminate the problem of over-provisioning and undergoing IT systems overload.
Enhance Collaboration and Mobility
Strato Scale says about 64% of business owners feel that cloud-based collaboration tools have helped them execute processes faster than in the past. About 87% of them also believe that cloud-based solutions “represent a true breakthrough in collaboration.” As we watch the traditional workplace break down into more remote, decentralized teams, we’ll also witness our growing dependence on remote employees. One of the best ways to increase productivity is by enabling your employees to easily collaborate with one another, using the various tools that are available for them in the cloud. The cloud and its apps, along with your company documents, emails, and projects can be easily accessible from anywhere your employees need them and at any time they need them. This makes it easier for them to attend meetings, instant message other employees, and collaborate on documents – even when they’re located halfway around the world.
Reduce Disaster Recovery
It’s also easier to protect your data and systems when you’re using the cloud. This is because a safe backup is always accessible. When your employees experience downtime they become quite inefficient. As such, you should do everything possible to ensure business continuity by implementing a Disaster Recovery plan based in the cloud. This is the best place to back up your company’s information because most cloud platform providers offer much higher uptime rates than the average local server. By opting for a multi-cloud approach with backups and offsite data stored on multiple clouds you’ll reduce your downtime to minutes, if not seconds. This will not only enable productivity, but it’ll also enable your business as well.
Say Goodbye to IT Problems
When you turn to the cloud you can start outsourcing operational IT work to them. Now you no longer carry the risks and burden associated with maintaining an in-house, IT infrastructure. Your cloud service provider now assumes all the risks and most of the burden for you. When you choose a good service provider everything from updates and security to routine maintenance is taken care of for you, saving you both time and money that you can then spend on other key areas of your business.
More Connectivity in Your Workforce
Collaboration technologies like a business phone system for communication increase productivity by as much as 400%. It also allows for easy collaboration amongst your employees, regardless of their location. This is because they no longer have to waste time sending files back and forth via unsecured email. Now they can all work together to improve your bottom line instead of wasting time decreasing it.
Maintain a Competitive Edge
About 74% of businesses who use the cloud report that they’ve received a competitive edge by doing so. This is because it’s faster and easier to capitalize on opportunities when using the cloud. When you can build and deliver faster, easier, cheaper and higher quality results you’re giving your business a huge advantage. You’re also giving your employees exactly what they need so they can perform their jobs well, which also helps make them even more productive than they were before. Of course, all of this will help your bottom line too.
Increase Scalability
The Balance Small Business says since the cloud is scalable, small businesses can create a strategic growth plan that utilizes the cloud’s benefits without worrying about funding a major investment up front. Know how and why so many businesses fail before planning to invest in small businesses and after start with a small investment then gradually increase it as their usage grows over time. This is because when you use the cloud you only paying for what services and access you need. Since the cloud is also self-managed by the apps that provide these services, you can either eliminate or reduce the need for an in-house IT staff who can manage your company’s technological needs.
Makes Big Data Easy to Manage
With cloud computing and cloud accounting software, it’s easier to handle “Big Data.” While traditional data storage methods haven’t always provided a simple way for businesses to carry out advanced analysis of their databases, this is something the cloud can easily do for you. Even large businesses can have this done quickly instead of the process taking many weeks and requiring them to hire many knowledgeable specialists. With the cloud, you have all the tools you need so you can quickly and easily sort through lots of unstructured data.
