Moving your business to the cloud

Cloud computing is one of the most important innovations for business in recent years. So many companies are adopting cloud solutions because they bring a whole host of benefits along with them. They can help you to improve productivity, adapt your working practices and save money at the same time. However, there are still plenty of businesses out there that are unsure whether they should make the move to the cloud or not. If you are one of those businesses, read on to find out about the many different benefits of moving your business to the cloud.

What Is Cloud Computing?

Some businesses don’t appreciate the benefits of the cloud because they don’t really understand what it is. In simple terms, a cloud computing solution allows you to use software that is externally hosted. All of your data is stored elsewhere and you can access it remotely as long as you have an internet connection. Google Docs is a common example that many people have probably used already. It’s a cloud solution because the documents are not stored on your computer, they are stored on Google’s servers and you access them through the web application.

This is just one example and there is a wide range of software and hardware that can be moved over to the cloud. But what exactly are the benefits of introducing these cloud solutions to your business?

Cost Efficiency

The financial benefits are one of the major things that encourage businesses to move to the cloud. You don’t need to pay for internal storage, which means no more large servers that are very expensive to run and maintain. Managing IT infrastructure is incredibly expensive, so businesses can save a lot of money if they have a cloud service that handles it all on their behalf.

Companies also save a lot of money on software licensing fees because they no longer need to pay for stand alone software. Services like Microsoft’s Azure allow you to build and maintain apps for your business without having to pay for the infrastructure to manage them. The security aspects are all handled by Azure as well, which means even bigger savings for your business.

If you move your business to the cloud, you may have to invest a bit of money upfront, but you will soon start making some big savings.

Improve Capacity For Remote Work

The business landscape is changing and more people are working remotely than ever before. This benefits you as a business because it helps to reduce your overheads and may even allow you to scale down your office. However, remote working is only effective with the right tools, and cloud computing provides those tools. Applications like Microsoft Sharepoint allow you to create a central document sharing space for all of your employees so they can easily collaborate on projects even when they are out of the office. Microsoft Office 365 also allows your employees to access software when out of the office so they always have the tools that they need. Central cloud storage ensures that all employees have access to whatever they need so they can work productively from home. This is far more secure than emailing sensitive documents back and forth, even if they are encrypted. Google also has a lot of great cloud storage systems, like Google Drive, which can be used for the same purposes.

Remote work is the future of business and companies that cannot keep up with that change will struggle, so it’s vital that you invest in cloud solutions.

Improved Backup and Recovery

Protecting your sensitive data is so important and in the event of a cyber attack or an accidental data loss, you need a backup and recovery plan in place. However, managing this yourself comes at a large cost. The cloud makes the process of backing up and recovering your files so much easier and more cost effective because all of your data resides in the cloud, not on a collection of physical servers. When you have a subscription to Office 365, you get cloud storage included, so all of your files are automatically protected. Even if your business falls victim to a cyber attack, they will only be able to access the files that are stored locally on your computers, so you can easily recover any important files from your cloud storage afterward.

When managing your own backup and recovery, you are limited by your own finances. But when your data is stored on the Office 365 cloud or Amazon Drive, you benefit from the financial power and expertise that those large companies have. There is no way that your business can match the online security of those organizations, so the cloud will always be safer.

Reduced Business Downtime

Downtime is incredibly expensive for businesses, so finding ways to reduce it is very important. If you are using local software and local storage, any maintenance issues mean that your employees are unable to work until you get it fixed, at a cost to the business. However, if you are using cloud solutions like Azure, Office 365, and Sharepoint, they will have a backup system in place, which will be automatically deployed.

You can also reduce business downtime by overcoming geographical and logistical barriers. In the past, you were limited to the 9 to 5 day in your own time zone. However, with collaborative tools like Sharepoint, people from around the globe in different time zones can all work on a project, so your business is up and running 24/7.

Scalability

As your business grows, you need to update your IT processes, add more storage, and invest in more software. Usually, this is a huge expense because it means buying new servers and paying the licenses on lots of software. However, if you are using cloud solutions, you can easily adjust your subscription and scale your IT solutions overnight with minimal added costs.

These are some of the huge benefits of moving your business to the cloud and if you don’t start making investments in solutions like Azure, Office 365 and Sharepoint, your business will soon fall behind.