10 reasons to migrate your business to the cloud

As a business owner, you have two primary goals: reduce overheads and increase profits. These are not always easy to reach. However, cloud computing makes it easier to achieve both. 

Cloud computing helps reduce your overheads. You don’t have to pay all personnel and equipment costs associated with managing your computers and network. It also helps increase your productivity, making it easier to earn a higher profit.

If you’re ready to modernise your business to be more competitive, don’t upgrade your server, buy new equipment, invest in the latest apps, and migrate all your data. It will be much easier to move your entire business over to the cloud. By deploying the cloud, you will shift from a capital expense model to a subscription payment model. Instead of struggling with the time, money, and labor of building and managing your own infrastructure, renting allows you to enjoy the freedom of instant access to all the computer resources you need.

One reservation you might have is if cloud computing can help a small to medium-sized business. Absolutely. You’ll be able to use on-demand services and scale your business from top to bottom. Cloud providers like Azure managed services give you support with your Microsoft products such as Office 365, SQL Server, and SharePoint, as well as provide monitoring, patching, and security. You can also get access to dedicated engineers at any time you need.

10 benefits of cloud computing

Here are 10 reasons why you might want to consider moving to the cloud:

1. Lower overheads. Traditionally, the businesses with the best equipment would dominate the industry. In the age of computers, this often meant the use of better equipment and more sophisticated software. Now, with cloud computing, it’s easier than ever to get into the game. Instead of spending a small fortune to install an application server, your initial fees to setup your business with a cloud provider will look remarkably modest.
2. Efficiency. By using the cloud, everything you do in your business will be better and faster. It’s easier to launch your business and faster to produce results for your clients or customers. Cloud providers give you the flexibility to choose the critical systems that you need. As your business grows, you can add a wide variety of resources. For instance, a business phone system has always been expensive and difficult to scale. However, with cloud telephony, you won’t have to overhaul your entire business telephone system if your business grows from ten to fifty to one hundred employees.
3. Scaling. Running at optimal capacity has always been a huge problem for businesses with their own servers. When you first start your business, you will have overcapacity. Later, as your business grows, it will have caught up with capacity. At that point, everything will be optimized. You will run your business at ideal capacity. However, as your business continues to do well, you will then have a problem with under-capacity. These problems don’t exist when you’re using cloud computing because you can scale your needs to fit the phase of maturity your business is in. You can scale up or down, as you need.
4. Burstability. Sometimes your business can become overwhelmed by an unexpected large order and a short delivery time. At this point, you will need to ramp up everything quickly. Burstability is a concept that describes the need to get a burst of extra capacity for a short time. If you have a dedicated server, there is little you can do to handle a sudden, temporary burst of business. With cloud computing, you’ll be able to handle this surge of new business.
5. Redundancy. With your own server, a single point of failure can bring down your entire infrastructure. Cloud computing operates on the principle of built-in redundancy. If one component breaks down, another can instantly replace it. In addition, cloud computing has a highly efficient backup system to prevent any data loss.
6. Green technology. Cloud services have to be highly efficient to survive. Consequently, cloud providers have huge data centers that are streamlined to maximize efficiency. Government agencies and non-profit environmental groups have given cloud providers positive ratings for green technology.
7. Location independent. You can run your business from anywhere in the world, not just your business premises. Time or geography is no longer a restriction. Field representatives can access the cloud, outsourcers in another country can access it, and executives on a business trip can access it. Using the cloud makes it much easier to create an international business.
8. Storage. Cloud data services like Asset Bank offer unlimited storage. Although hard drive storage has become impressive, making it possible to store 1 terabyte of data, this is paltry compared to cloud storage. The fact is that your business will never reach a point where it will be able to use all the storage capacity available.
9. Security. Cloud providers offer many security capabilities, including encryption, authentication, disaster recovery, and security hardware and software protection from hackers.
10. Integration. A small business can integrate many of its back office operations, like marketing or accounting with the cloud.

How much is it worth to your business to slash capital expenses, benefit from scalability, enjoy unlimited storage, and enjoy all the other benefits of cloud computing? You will not only lower your overheads, but increase your productivity, performance, and profitability.