Many small to midsize businesses are migrating to the cloud and experiencing benefits that were never possible before. Cloud computing is a great way that small business owners can save money, time, and hassle on a daily basis. The cloud enables your IT infrastructure to evolve as quickly as your business does. Whether you are in retail, food & beverage, real estate, or financial services, cloud computing is a practice that you will want to integrate and eventually adopt all together.
Larger businesses use the cloud every day for common services. With the cloud model, there is not installation on the user end and the user never actually ‘owns’ any software. Rather than buying a product, the company is renting a service. The number of cloud-based solutions in the marketplace is massive – and in many cases, small and midsized businesses are already using one of these services and may not even be aware that they fall into the cloud service category.
Services include communications and commerce, security and network monitoring, financial and bookkeeping tools, data and business document management, content authoring and learning management, helpdesk software, automation and cross-channel communications, search engine optimization, employee time tracking and monitoring, and warehouse & fulfillment services.
Here are some benefits of cloud-based computing:
Financial benefits:
Financial benefits from the cloud are by far the best. Cloud-hosted servers enable mass-scale computing power and minimize IT requirements and physical storage, providing significant savings. In the vast majority of cases, there is no upfront fee. Most services charge a manageable, predictable, flat-rate monthly fee per user for the software. This allows users to scale up or down as their business requirements dictate. This also allows for easy scalability.
Work from anywhere:
Cloud-hosted desktops allow users to access their files anytime, anywhere, using any device. Files are no longer stuck on one single computer. In today’s digitally connected world, having access to your services from any location is a must-have option. Today’s small business owners work from hotels and airport lounges, as well as the office. Cloud services offer 24-hour access from any internet-connected location.
Collaboration and communication:
Saving and accessing files through the cloud allows everyone to work from the same master document. Administrators can implement access and permission controls, effective communication techniques, and real-time workflows. While allowing multiple users to view the same file, document, presentation, or spreadsheet at the same time, companies can get things accomplished in hours instead of weeks.
Risk reduction and recovery:
The cloud adds security for its users by backing-up data off-site, decreasing the potential for hackers, viruses, and other cyber-security issues. Any good cloud provider will have invested heavily into security and crisis control – far greater than any small business can ever afford. The nature of their business demands that they store your valuable data securely – so they invest heavily into these aspects of the business.
Efficiency and low maintenance:
After migrating to the cloud, companies no longer worry about power requirements, space considerations, maintenance, or software updates. There is no internal technology to worry about. Small business owners can offset the operational IT work to someone outside the organization and puts it on the provider, the way it should be. Cloud computing outsources the technology and reduces the risks and unexpected expenses associated with your in-house IT.
Cloud storage is one of the best investments a small business can make. Disasters strike, devices get misplaced, and you never know when you’ll need access to files on the go. Cloud storage is also the perfect file-sharing tool, especially for documents and multimedia files too large to send by email. Whether you need a reliable data backup solution, instant access to files wherever you are, or a simple way to share files with clients and colleagues — or all of the above — there is a cloud storage service for you.
Great article. Thanks for sharing it. Cloud based solutions is the most popular solutions nowadays. Many problems can be solved by cloud. We can store the data in the cloud and access it any time.
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thank you for sharing this informative article.
Thanks for sharing
Very informative article. Thanks for sharing
Very Informative article. really cloud storage and hosting really helps to small and midsize businesses to store data.
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