Member Article

Three Ways The Cloud Can Help Small Businesses Flourish

Investing in IT is a scary prospect for many small business owners. It’s seen as something that only big companies can afford and so business owners struggle away on improvised systems until they feel they are worthy of the IT infrastructure investment. It doesn’t need to be this way. Advances in cloud technology mean that complex IT systems aren’t the reserve of large multinational corporations. Small businesses can benefit immensely from investment in cloud computing. Here are three ways you can grow your small business from the cloud.

Make Smarter Decisions

Using the cloud to streamline your business not only makes everyday processes easier, but it can also make them smarter. With the cloud, you can easily organise data and put big data to use. Big data has become something of a buzzword in industry circles, but simply put, it’s a way to make sense of behaviour through data. By putting big data to work, companies can make smarter decisions based on complex information that would never have been possible without the cloud.

Collaborate Seamlessly

If your company is made up of employees based in different cities or even different countries, seamless collaboration will be very important to your business’s growth. If you’ve ever tried to send files back and forth and had trouble with compatibility, you might be interested to learn that cloud computing can solve all of your collaboration issues. Working in the cloud means that all files are available to everyone at the same time and changes can happen in real time. No more worrying if you’re working on the right version of a document again!

Improve Security

If you have a mobile device such as a phone or a tablet that you use to access important or sensitive information, you will naturally be concerned about IT security. If the information is stored on the device, it will be accessible to anyone who steals the device. If, however, you store your information on the cloud, a stolen device won’t mean that the information goes missing too. You can simply disconnect the device from your cloud account and the thief won’t have access to your important information.

A lot of companies put off upgrading their managed IT services over fear that the price will be too high or it will be too complex for their employees to understand. A good IT provider will make the process simple with the idea that it integrates seamlessly into the work day.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Harper .