The Future Of Your Business Relies On Cloud Technologies – Here’s How

Looking back at legacy tools and infrastructure, SMBs faced many challenges when embracing any new technology.

However, the pandemic-induced remote operations have changed the status quo for business owners.

For example, accessibility was a huge concern during the pandemic. Employees struggled to access the essential tools needed for day-to-day tasks, during the initial days of lockdown.

However, it soon changed and a majority of companies opted for cloud-based communication channels. Tools like Zoom, Skype, and Slack soon emerged as the most popular cloud-based team management tools.

To your surprise, what started as a remedy for pandemic afflicted challenges, is now a norm. In other words, cloud technologies are vastly present in every sector and domain of the business world.

And probably, it is here to stay.

Several studies reveal that employees and employers might be looking forward to remote operations even after the pandemic.

Perhaps, you should explore if the technology could help you in any way.

Improved Accessibility For All Levels

As already mentioned the biggest concern for SMBs during the initial weeks of the pandemic was accessibility. Not all employees had remote access to the proprietary software.

As a result, companies had to suffer significant losses in productivity and customer satisfaction.

However, the ingress of Cloud-based tools helped resolve these accessibility challenges. Employees are now able to connect to their, beyond geographical borders. 

Flexible Working Model Of Work

According to a report, only one-fourth of the job seekers are willing to work from the office all the time. Perhaps, the desire for flexible work options may not just vanish as people get vaccinated, or the pandemic subsides.

Employers may need to look for solutions to create a flexible working model for employees. And thankfully, cloud-based tools are fully equipped to facilitate it.

With the right tools at hand, employers assign new targets to the employees, monitor their progress, and even measure the quality of their work, within a few minutes.

Improved Cybersecurity Risk Management

Whether or not small business owners use cloud technologies, most of them still use the Ooma internet phones every day. From sending and receiving payments to tax filing, the internet is almost indispensable today.

Without adequate cybersecurity measures in place, business owners risk losing their data and information to hackers.

In contrast, cloud-based technologies almost eliminate the management part. Meaning, service providers are usually responsible for ensuring the security of data and information in their remote data centers. Besides, the cloud operators have pretty much a backup plan for every scenario.

Creating A Leaner Operating Model

Maintaining networks, servers, storage, and the headcount on-campus can add up pretty fast. And there are always risks involved for errors.

For instance, hiring an in-house customer grievance team would require you to invest in infrastructure, inventory, training, and other necessities. In contrast, a cloud-based call center can get the job done at a fraction of the cost. And would also be delivering more reliable outcomes to the business owners.

Besides, the cost of purchasing and upgrading technologies is also a huge concern, and notably recurring in nature. But, when you have cloud-based technology to back you up, none of these costs should concern you. Thus, creating a leaner working model for your company.

Increase Team Productivity

There are reliable studies on employee productivity that suggest an overall 47% increase in productivity last year. Cloud tools and VoIP services have been a considerable contributor to this growth.

With the ease of access and flexibility in the working model, employees have shown increased compassion. And thus outperformed their capacities when working from home.

Besides, there was a recorded 230% increase in telephone calls, a 57% increase in email activity, a 9% increase in chat messages, and a 176% increase in CRM activity during last year.

Access To More Populous Talent Pool

The best thing about the remote working model is the access to a bigger talent pool.

Consider this; the cloud is already supporting a distributed workforce. Either some or all of the employees are working from remote locations already.

Now, this gives employers an edge on the hiring market. Meaning, business owners operating from Seattle can hire a workforce in LA and onboard them for a position in Washington.

The candidates don’t even need to appear for an interview or the documentation process physically. Business owners can quickly deploy all of these tasks over the cloud.

Data-Driven Business Decisions

Not all businesses have the capacity to access and use big data for growth decisions. The only limiting factor here is the lack of a centralized data center to accumulate and formulate user data.

However, with the help of cloud-based technologies, business owners can create a centralized hub for all real-time business data.

Moreover, data-driven business decisions required large-scale expenditures and agility in testing new ideas earlier. Thankfully, business owners can overcome both these hurdles with the help of cloud technology.

Business owners can leverage the insights gathered on the central hub and make better decisions.

Easy Scalability For Your Business

You cannot deny the fact that growth costs money. And more so, it requires upfront capital and resource investment.

For many SMB owners, it could be challenging to accumulate or arrange large amounts of funds and resources to scale their business quickly.

On the other hand, could technology allows business owners to pay-as-they-use. For example, if a business needs a cloud-based document management system, it only needs to pay for the same. You may not require other services in the bouquet. And as such, the business may or may not need to spend on it.

Besides, the expenses would only be made for as long as the service is used and no longer after it. Investing capital to create such infrastructure in-house would mean dead capital investment. Meaning, the business won’t get any returns on it, even if it stops using the infrastructure.

In short, cloud technology allows upsizing or downsizing the services and costs associated with them.

The Bottomline

Cloud technologies have more benefits to offer than any conventional tool. They are more reliable, flexible, and easy to use. And most importantly, technology is economical for all business sizes.