If you have not yet adopted cloud services for your business, you may be missing out on some important benefits that add efficiency to your company. From automation to scalability, there are many advantages to cloud migration. And as the resources available in the cloud continue to grow, the efficiencies tend to multiply. Here are a few areas where cloud adoption can make a significant impact on your business:
Scalability: Whether you have a busy season or you tend to experience growth in fits and starts, cloud services can allow you to spin up new users in minutes. You can also reduce the number of users just as easily as your volume decreases. Cloud solutions allow you to pay for exactly the number of users you are utilizing.
Cost Savings: A traditional, on-premises solution requires a capital investment. By contrast, cloud services are categorized as operating expenses. You also enjoy the freedom from purchasing hardware or maintaining the solution, because the third-party provider handles these areas.
Security: In the early days of cloud migration, there were a lot of questions about how data and systems would be protected, but these concerns have largely been addressed because large cloud providers have security that far exceeds what any individual company can implement.
Collaboration: Cloud services support a work-from-anywhere work environment, providing access to shared workspaces, video conferencing, and unified communications, speeding up decision-making and project management, and improving overall productivity.
Automation: Machine learning and artificial intelligence have further developed automation options so that your staff can be freed up to focus on other tasks.
Once you’ve decided you would like to implement cloud services, you will look for a provider. Take into consideration these areas:
Needs Assessment: You should conduct a full assessment of your current business processes, the tools and features you need, and the solutions that may provide those benefits during a cloud migration.
Evaluate Providers: You’ll need to identify a few providers that offer the solutions you want to access. Consider reviews, pricing, and security. Think about whether the implementation you want to do would require a network upgrade to support performance specifications.
Scalability and Business Continuity: You need a provider that can keep up with your growth. You should also find out what they have in place for disaster recovery and business continuity support, should they have a major disaster or outage.
Reliability: What is the provider’s guarantee for uptime? Also, check the service level agreement to find out what happens when the guarantee is not met.
Cloud services are a reliable way to streamline your business processes, saving resources and improving productivity, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to pursue cloud adoption. Contact us at Cloud Source for assistance in every part of the process, from assessing your needs to identifying the right provider.