Why Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Should Move into the Cloud

Six Cloud Migration Strategies for Applications

Continuous advancements in cloud technology have motivated many businesses to adopt the smarter way of computing. While a favorite among large scale businesses, Cloud Technology is now increasingly taken by small businesses as well. Many straightforward advantages compel business owners to adopt cloud services — benefits such as data security, flexible storage, 0% downtime, CRM management, resource optimization, modern technology, and omnipresent resource mapping, are some of the most significant advantages of Cloud Technology that transform the budding small and medium enterprise (SMEs).

The world is full of competition, and nobody wants to lag. Business owners are continuously searching for ways through which their profits can be maximized without compromising on quality, cost, and efficiency — the Cloud promises an entirely compatible platform to meet such purposes. SMEs, which constitute a significant part of the industrial world, can benefit in numerous ways through cloud adoption. Many have started to adopt the cloud while some are still using primitive technology, unaware of the lucrative benefits of cloud computing. Given below are the factors that make cloud technology the optimal solution for SMEs.

Remote Computing

If you have a compatible device and a working internet connection, Cloud technologies allow you to work from anywhere at any time; this becomes very useful for small businesses who keep changing office space now and then. The SME professional needs to travel a lot to expand the reach of their business; they may not require immediate permanent office set up yet as they are testing the locality which is best suited for their office.

Working remotely also gives massive flexibility to part-time professionals; they can go home and work from there, offering the most of their time. Professionals can also optimize resources quickly, at a relatively lower price. Moreover, SMEs are very agile compared to big business enterprises, and the cloud provides the freedom to converge this agility.

Flexibility

A business that undermines profit needs can hardly succeed. Profit is very much needed for the growth of the organization, and a businessperson must always aim to maximize it in whichever way possible. Cloud technology gives that opportunity—with pay-as-you-use doctrine, the firm ends up saving significant money on investment; this becomes all the more important for SMEs as growing businesses, aspiring to reach peaks and dominate the competitive world.

Through employing Cloud in a business model, SMEs escape the jaws of additional advance payments, that often hits at a business’ strength. Cloud technology is very much suited for the ever-changing financial dynamics of SMEs, with the ability to scale up or down at any time, without the tension of incurring an unnecessary cost.

Security

Security breaches are a public threat that every firm deal has needed to battle; but, this threat attains a very high gravity when it comes to SMEs. They have the pressure of establishing goodwill in the market and standing out, to flourish. In the start, it is essential for SMEs to develop a sense of reliability in its customers. For this, it is critical that SMEs take necessary steps towards data security.

Cloud technology is one such step that fortifies the security levels of the company’s data. In the cloud, it is the experts who take command of your data to encrypt and secure them from the reach of hackers. An additional advantage of choosing cloud is that your data is always backed-up, so you don’t need to worry at all about the data, the experts will handle it all—a must for SMEs to propagate reliance.

Scalability

SMEs see ups and downs very frequently when compared to big businesses. Their market is very unpredictable and requires immediate adjustments in scaling. Such fluctuation might sometimes cause problems in the way of steady growth of the company. Using cloud, SMEs can overcome this hurdle.

As SMEs must expand and want to establish offices at specific locations, the cloud can automatically add up needs and charge only for utilized services. Even at the time of the online campaign, the cloud becomes very useful to expand post reach — you can scale it down again when you are done with your drive after few days.

Conclusion

Cloud solutions have a better edge over traditional software services, even more so for SMEs. With compelling advantages that can change the game around for such businesses, it is best to choose a plan at the earliest possible time. From flexibility to affordability, cloud technology gives ample opportunities to SMEs to expand their business.

The cloud takes most of the load from your shoulders and hands it over to the experts. To fight a competitive market, you will have to be one step ahead of all, and there is no better companion than cloud to lead you through the digital age.

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Why Has Cloud Technology Become a Necessity for the Majority of Businesses?

Why Has Cloud Technology Become a Necessity for the Majority of Businesses?

When you think of plug and go technology, the Cloud is likely the first thing which comes to your mind. Talk innovation, flexibility, and advancement, and the Cloud emerges as the clear choice for companies willing to take the risk in the long run.

What is Cloud computing all About?

Cloud computing is all about delivering power over the Internet. All in all, everything is accessed mainly through the web browser; there will be no local machines, servers or even infrastructure dependencies. With the introduction of the Cloud, businesses and consumers don’t have to worry about investing in IT resources like storage facilities, virtual machines, and other running applications.

Companies which made a move to the Cloud have reaped immense benefits from the shift. Companies which did not make a move are in danger of becoming obsolete over a period. If the transition is still pending for your business, then it’s time to get the ball rolling — the success of your business depends on the move to the Cloud.

What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing and Why Is It Necessary for Businesses to Move to It?

Flexibility: As a company, there are high chances that your bandwidth needs will fluctuate on a day to day basis. If your needs progress, you can increase and scale up your cloud capacity, and the decrease it when there is no longer much requirement. This way, the possibility of being able to scale up or down gives you better leverage on your server; it also makes your business environment-friendly.

Disaster Recovery: What is the biggest fear for enterprises these days? Loss of valuable enterprise-wide data; this could pertain to customer data or even financial data. Businesses of all sizes have large collections of data; if any of it gets lost, the chances are that it could cost the company heavily. For this very reason, businesses try to invest in disaster recovery systems to safeguard their business against any data thefts or losses.

With the Cloud in place, companies can avoid investing in disaster recovery software, as the Cloud offers these services at minimal costs; this service is available to small and large businesses, at varying prices, depending on requirements.

Automatic Software Updates: Cloud servers are off-premise and out of sight; this means that there are no endless worries about security updates, or any other service updates, which can prove to be a headache if the business owns it. Since suppliers own the cloud infrastructure, it’s the supplier’s responsibility to roll out the required updates to ensure maximum performance delivery to the customers. Companies can benefit immensely, as they can concentrate on their core business delivery.

Freed From Capital Expenditure: Various suppliers provide Cloud services, which means businesses don’t need to spend a lot of money on purchasing server related infrastructure. Companies can pay as per their usage; these costs can also vary depending on their requirements. Since everything is the supplier’s hands, companies are not required to invest too heavily in purchasing their server, or storage space, as the supplier bears everything.

Better Collaboration Between Teams: Since an organization’s work is spread throughout the organization, different teams can access and manage their work. This way, there is an excellent collaboration between different groups, which increases work efficiency.

The Cloud by Your Side: Every company wants to move ahead of its competition in the market. As you run to the Cloud, you get a technological edge on your competitors, which keep you one step ahead of everyone in the market who might not be using this technology. Everything will spell success, as you get to reap the benefits of Cloud services.

 

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Top 10 Advantages of Cloud Computing

cloud computing

In simple words, cloud computing may be called as computing that is based entirely on the internet. As in the past, where people needed to run programs or applications from software which would be downloaded from a server or a physical computer, cloud computing services help them to access those applications through the medium of internet. When you make any status update on your Facebook account, you make use of cloud computing. When you check your bank account balance on the phone, again you make use of cloud computing. We can say that cloud computing services are becoming the new common.

The most trending cloud computing services are the AWS Cloud Services (Amazon Web Services). It is an evolving and comprehensive platform for cloud computing offered by Amazon. It offers more than three others varied services including RedShift, DynamoDB, and Mechanical Turk etc.

According to the estimates, 90% of the businesses in the United Kingdom are using a minimum of one cloud service. Have you ever wondered why so many businesses are moving towards it? It is simply because there are several advantages of cloud computing. It helps in improving the cash flow, increases the efficiency and numerous others. Have a look at these top 10 advantages of cloud computing.

1. Less Costs The services are free from capital expenditure. There are no huge costs of hardware in cloud computing. You just have to pay as you operate it and enjoy the model based on your subscription plan.

2. 24 X 7 Availability Most of the cloud providers are truly reliable in offering their services, with most of them maintaining an uptime of 99.9%. The workers can get onto the applications needed basically from anywhere. Some of the applications even function off-line.

3. Flexibility in Capacity It offers flexible facility which could be turned off, up or down as per the circumstances of the user. For instance, a promotion of sales is very popular, capacity can be immediately and quickly added to it for the avoidance of losing sales and crashing servers. When those sales are done, the capacity can also be shrunk for the reduction of costs.

4. All over Functioning Cloud computing offers yet another advantage of working from anywhere across the globe, as long as you have an internet connection. Even while using the critical cloud services that offer mobile apps, there is no limitation of the device used.

5. Automated Updates on Software In cloud computing, the server suppliers regularly update your software including the updates on security, so that you do not need to agonize on wasting your crucial time on maintaining the system. You find extra time to focus on the important things like ‘How to grow your businesses.

6. Security Cloud computing offers great security when any sensitive data has been lost. As the data is stored in the system, it can be easily accessed even if something happens to your computer. You can even remotely wipe out data from the lost machines for avoiding it getting in the wrong hands.

7. Carbon Footprint Cloud computing is helping out organizations to reduce their carbon footprint. Organizations utilize only the amount of resources they need, which helps them to avoid any over-provisioning. Hence, no waste of resources and thus energy.

8. Enhanced Collaboration Cloud applications enhance collaboration by authorizing diverse groups of people virtually meet and exchange information with the help of shared storage. Such capability helps in improving the customer service and product development and also reducing the marketing time.

9. Control on the Documents Before cloud came into being, workers needed to send files in and out as the email attachments for being worked on by a single user at one time ultimately ending up with a mess of contrary titles, formats, and file content. Moving to cloud computing has facilitated central file storage.

10. Easily Manageable Cloud computing offers simplified and enhanced IT maintenance and management capacities by agreements backed by SLA, central resource administration and managed infrastructure. You get to enjoy a basic user interface without any requirement for installation. Plus you are assured guaranteed and timely management, maintenance, and delivery of the IT services.

Even the few of these advantages of cloud computing might be enough to persuade businesses to move onto the cloud computing services. But when summed up all of these 10, it is accosting no-brainer domain.