It’s in the cloud! Cloud computing emphasizes flexibility, scalability, storage and cost savings, but once businesses make the switch, even more benefits emerge. Especially now, these perks include how easy it is to transition to remote offices with cloud technology.
The cloud has allowed companies to scale up and down with flexibility and not worry about the bandwidth to cope with huge demands. This go-to method for both personal and business services is the future of how companies can survive another pandemic, but what exactly can cloud computing do for your business?
Two Types of Cloud Computing
The first step to helping your business reap the benefits of this technology is knowing the two types of cloud computing and what they do.
The first type is software-as-a-service (SaaS), which is accessed through a web browser. The other type is Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which means the hardware is installed in-house by a provider. Most people think of SaaS when they think of cloud computing. Switching to cloud computing can help your business:
- Change Capacity With Ease
- Cloud services allow you to change your hosting capacity virtually whenever you want. This makes altering your online business much easier and low-maintenance than dealing with contracted services that would have you sign on to a flat-rate contract for a matter of months or years.
- Remodel Without Extra Costs
- This is helpful for companies that are looking to expand into new technology as soon as it’s available. Companies are able to get access to the servers and high-quality storage they need for new, high-powered apps without paying a big chunk of change.
- Have More Users With Less Money
- In the past, when a business started to run out of space for new users on a server, the next step was to look into building an entirely new data center. This is no longer true. The cloud allows you to add more people to a server, while not paying much more.
- Your Staff Is Free For Other Things
- Cloud computing services usually provide their own management services. This allows your IT workers to focus on keeping your business running at full-speed while the cloud handles all other data.
Benefits Of Cloud Computing
Allowing companies to store all their data in one place is just one benefit of cloud computing. According to Forbes, many business owners have found there are a few unexpected perks of switching to the cloud. Some pleasant surprises of cloud computing include:
- More Flexibility To Get Into New Businesses
- What holds back the new pursuit of ideas among entrepreneurs and large organizations alike? Time and money, or the lack thereof. Say you want to design and test a new product line. With the availability of on-demand cloud resources, new configurations can be up and running within hours or minutes. Since users will only be charged for that amount of time they use the cloud, the money needed is also reduced. Even within the largest enterprises, innovation springs from constant experimentation, the ability to keep trying new ideas and being willing to fail. On-demand cloud resources provide a way to try out new ideas without extreme investments in supporting systems and a shift in business focus can be made fairly quickly.
- Smoother Mergers And Acquisitions
- One of the great sticking points of many mergers is the months or even years it takes to bring data and records from one system into another. Sometimes, it never happens. Even government agencies have this problem in a big way, especially when efforts are made to consolidate agencies or departments. There are agencies today that have workers manually coding information from one system to another, which takes a lot of time and work. With systems in the cloud, however, the transition is much faster. End users in the conjoined organizations can readily and rapidly access cloud-based systems.
- Ability To Duplicate Or Adopt Successful Business Processes Others Have Hashed Out
- One of the fears about cloud services is that they’re homogenized, built to the lowest common denominator, and thus level the playing field for all business customers. However, this collective knowledge is actually a huge benefit. Cloud services are based on the accumulated learning and input of customers, and new customers immediately are exposed to processes, formulas and interfaces that are well-tested and proven to deliver the best business results. This is the kind of education you can’t even get at Harvard Business School.
- More Tech-savvy Executive Suite
- These days, in a hyper-competitive global economy, the advantage goes to organizations that are adept at leveraging the latest technology resources. To get there, they need the leadership and guidance of their CIOs, CTOs and other technology leaders. You don’t want these executives’ time saddled overseeing maintenance of in-house IT systems — in fact, statistics regularly show that up to 80% of IT budgets are tied up in routine maintenance. The cloud frees up IT executives to think and act strategically. IT leaders provide the insights needed to select the right technology resources for the business, be they from the corporate data center or from an outside service provider.
- Segue Into The Cloud Business
- As many organizations build out a private cloud — using tools from VMware or OpenStack — they are establishing online services that not only can be delivered to internal users but outside their firewalls as well. In addition, organizations using third-party services are incorporating those services into their own bundles of offerings. As a result, they are offering various online services to customers and partners. For example, UPS and FedEx, provide tracking and logistics applications to customers from their sizable data centers.
Cut Email Costs
Transitioning your business’s email to the cloud could help your company cut costs. According to Microsoft Exchange, companies can experience up to 90% savings in their first year when factoring licensing, hardware/storage, IT admin and hosted email costs.
By switching to cloud-hosted email, companies don’t have to spend as much money on email server hardware support and upgrades while also reducing the need for IT support and maintenance. Workers experience better email productivity with more features, such as being able to access business email anytime and anywhere.
MDL Technology Is Here To Help
Cloud computing is a diligent way to compute applications, personal collaboration and business processes whenever and wherever you want, all while saving your company money. Whether your employees are working from home or at the office, your company is able to work on a secure and compliant data center. Working on the cloud allows for employees to work in multiple geographic locations when necessary.
Your company’s security is our top priority. We offer services such as 24/7 support, network monitoring, offsite data backups, auditing and compliance and more to help ensure that you don’t need to stress about your team’s private information becoming public.
Learn more about the services we offer by visiting our website.
