If your organization hasn’t moved to the Cloud yet, it may be missing out on a host of cost-saving opportunities. The benefits are tremendous, ranging from better customer experience to greater mobile accessibility among your employees. And according to a 2015 report by Exact, small businesses that employed Cloud-based solutions doubled their profits and generated 25% more revenue growth than their Cloud-reluctant counterparts.
If that’s not enough to convince you to make the switch to the Cloud, ask yourself these three questions and then keep reading to see how adopting the Cloud can revolutionize the way you do business.
- Pay for Only What You Need
Instead of purchasing excessive equipment and IT infrastructure to support anticipated growth, you can stretch your budget further with the Cloud because you only pay for exactly what you need, when you need it. The Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud-computing platform is a good example. With its pay-as-you-go model, scalable resources can be adjusted on demand. For instance, seasonal businesses can benefit from this cost-agile advantage by paying for Cloud infrastructure only during peak season.
Additionally, the Cloud enables you to do away with licensing fees and annual renewals. This is possible because Cloud services either implement subscription/pay-as-you-go models or do not require software licensing purchases. This is a far cry from traditional networks, which often require costly support and complex maintenance contracts.
2. Save on Operation Costs
Besides significant cost savings on infrastructure, adopting the Cloud also allows you to cut down on staffing costs. When you purchase additional equipment, you need more people to install it and keep it running, but the Cloud eliminates the need for all this.
In addition, many Cloud providers offer mobile apps. The employee benefits from this are twofold: they can work anywhere they want, and there are no restrictions on the devices they can use. With this kind of flexibility, employees can enjoy a better work-life balance. One study reported that workplace and schedule flexibility increased job satisfaction and reduced perceived stress among information technology workers. Happier employees tend to perform better in their jobs, which means happier clients and customers that in turn can lead to more repeat business and higher customer retention rates.
With reduced staffing expenses and simplified capital cost on infrastructure, your organization can free up more funds for other things, like business investment, which could include experimenting on a new product line or setting up another niche business.
3. Reduce the Risk of Costly Errors
Cloud adoption eliminates the possibility of costly errors by allowing employees to seamlessly switch between devices and platforms without losing entries or updates. And with up-to-the-minute information available across multiple devices and platforms, anyone on your team with Cloud access can quickly revise and spot errors, too. Simplified file sharing and syncing in real time can also drive your workforce to be more efficient and effective overall.
Furthermore, the Cloud allows organizations to take advantage of a consistently reliable network during unplanned downtime without spending money on physical servers as emergency backups. Many Cloud providers offer geo-redundancy, where sensitive data saves across multiple locations. This is an added bonus for your organization in terms of boosting information security efforts. In fact, Cloud adopters have been shown to recover more quickly from site disasters than non-Cloud users for this very reason.
Although Cloud computing was once a novelty, it’s becoming an indispensable tool for organizations that want to stay lean without sacrificing workforce happiness and customer support. As Cloud technologies mature, organizations of all sizes can expect Cloud prices to continue to fall, and Cloud security and reliability capabilities to improve due to increasing competition. Whether you’re looking for faster disaster recovery or significant cost savings, moving to the Cloud simply makes better business sense.
