Technology is the driving force behind modern businesses in every industry in the world.
Software products are now available to solve every business problem you could imagine, usually at low prices and with fast rollouts.
Gone are the days when you needed to employ in-house developers to create your own software or run expensive, long term projects to implement off the shelf products.
Cloud Computing technology may not be a new concept but only now are business leaders starting to adopt it in greater numbers.
If you’re still on the fence whether or not you should migrate your processes to the cloud, here are 6 important benefits of cloud computing to help your small business thrive.
Improved financial management
Almost every company in the world has the same goal – to maximize profits and minimize expenses.
What might seem like a straightforward path to a clear objective quickly turns into a long and winding road that requires you to manage your revenue streams meticulously whilst controlling costs.
With cloud-based solutions such as Xero, Quickbooks or Sage, financial management can become a less stressful task.
The technology might even help you solidify your financial standing in the competitive industry.
Reduced costs
Being an on-demand service, cloud computing allows you to optimise your budget by only paying for features and sub-services that you need, making it a cost-effective solution and the best way to minimise the expenses of an in-house IT department.
Migrating to the cloud means that you can eliminate your on-site data centre and thus remove the associated costs.
Boosting digital transformation
In this digital era, there’s really no need to keep jotting things down on paper.
In fact, many companies are working hard to create a paperless office where everything is handled using smart technology to maximise efficiency, boost collaboration, and make the lives of employees easier.
Cloud computing can help you achieve the goal of a paperless workplace, but its broader application will boost the digital transformation across your company.
The key objective here is to reduce manual tasks and minimise the risk of human error by equipping your team with the features and tools they need to do their job efficiently and effectively.
Your team members can easily sync-up all of their devices to your company’s cloud and thus create one big collaborative hub that thrives on timely communication and the exchange of important business data.
Faster software development and delivery
The cloud platform allows companies to develop in-house solutions faster through improved collaboration and innovative features.
DevOps is the hold grail of development efficiency as it allows development teams more autonomy to automate tasks - removing some of the bottlenecks associated with a traditional software development process.
DevOps is easier to achieve using the flexibility of cloud solutions and allows companies to unlock the true potential of their development teams and operations managers.
Ultimately, this shortens the time to market and minimises financial waste.
Leveraging the cloud’s scalability
The goal of every small business is to expand its operation, if only a little, in order to generate more profit and solidify its position in its industry.
To achieve this you need an IT infrastructure which can scale with your expanding business.
This is no mean feat, and traditional in-house IT infrastructures will seldom scale in the way you hoped, nor be cost-effective to replace. Cloud-based infrastructures operate on a 'pay as you go' approach, which makes it easy and cost-effective to scale.
You simply pay for what you use, which means your IT infrastructure costs grow with your business.
Data security and backups
In an increasingly volatile online world, hackers and scammers are constantly trying to breach corporate security measures in order to snag valuable business and customer information.
You mustn’t allow a cyber-attack to breach your defences if you are to preserve your brand’s reputation and standing in your industry, which is why you need to consider migrating to the cloud.
Cloud technology brings the latest in cyber-security measures to the table, which means better data protection and timely data recovery.
This could save your business in a digital world.
Wrapping up
Cloud computing is quickly becoming the foundation of business success in a tech-driven world.
This is why small businesses should consider migrating to the cloud in order to build their competitive advantage.
With these reasons in mind, what's stopping you?
