In everyday life, it’s often said to be a bad thing if someone has their head in the clouds – but, in the world of business, the difference probably couldn’t be starker. Well, this is assuming that “cloud” refers to cloud computing, the infrastructure of which can help to ease many business processes.
If your firm already runs several cloud-based operations, when should you start spearheading a more thorough transition? Here are signs that you should do so sooner, not later.
You are spinning a complex web of integrated services
One issue with maintaining just a few processes in the cloud is that, if you drag your heels in spreading the cloud magic further, you could inadvertently garner a bewildering patchwork of software. Different applications could serve different purposes but fail to work well together.
Does the complexity of your corporate network mean that integration points falter or bottlenecks appear to customers’ annoyance, possibilities raised by Inc.? The cloud could iron out many creases.
Your budget scarcely covers setting up and running a data centre
Bringing all of your company’s data management under a single, integrated system could initially seem like a good method for cutting away the complexity of a messy application patchwork.
However, this move could be hindered in its effectiveness if you establish your company’s own data centre. After all, buying equipment and hiring technicians for that facility could burn up much of your business budget. Jumping to cloud computing instead can prove more financially palatable.
Employees often make trips away from the office
Today’s workforce is often a highly mobile one, aided by the ready availability and adoption of functionality-heavy mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Therefore, with a cloud solution in place as well, working routines don’t need to be strictly tethered to the bricks-and-mortar office.
The growthbusiness.co.uk website points out how this arrangement can enable you to lower the tally of workstations on the premises and, for further cost-cutting, let some staff work from home.
You are uncertain about your firm’s growth prospects
Naturally, we are all ambitious for our businesses, but the future can be unpredictable. For this reason, there remains the heart-sinking possibility of you bulking out your company’s reserve of servers and licenses in anticipation for forecasted growth that ultimately fails to materialise.
Fortunately, scaling up cloud computing services can cause much less heartache. Your cloud provider can simply, in minutes, add to your existing package as you need – and can afford – extras.
You need to back up data in a dedicated way
If you store data through traditional means, you will need a backup plan especially for this data. Otherwise, data could be permanently lost in the event of a disaster.
However, if data is stored in the cloud rather than a physical unit, your company doesn’t even need a backup plan. Your company’s data will remain available to internet-connected staff.
Corporate data is backed up only to physical servers and data centres
One reason for the riskiness of storing data physically is that, if your premises’ security is breached, physical units like laptops and computers can disappear as a result. You would no longer be able to do anything with the data on this equipment as a burglar takes it far from your business base.
Reassuringly, confidential information can be remotely deleted if it is cloud-based. Cloud platforms also throw up security measures that, for aspiring thieves, can be fiendishly taxing to break.
Staff members feel limited in their means of collaborating
With many of your staff members probably in geographically disparate locations at any given time, this could obviously add friction to their use of communication channels to interact with each other.
Fortunately, you can throw away many fetters by replacing them with a cloud computing solution, which would let your personnel share data and collaborate across physical boundaries.
RedPixie, a British provider of enterprise cloud services, is one example of a company capable of helping businesses to prepare a cloud solution conducive to hassle-free collaboration.
Your workforce would be comfortable with a cloud transition
Though we largely advocate moving to the cloud, you should postpone the switchover for your own business if its staff are reticent about the prospect.
The Business Journals notes that internal IT staff could fear losing their jobs in a cloud move, while other workers might favour owning – rather than renting – hardware. Why not show staff that the cloud is transforming how the finance products are being forecasted for risk, among other benefits?