Every business owner – at one point or another – feels completely over their heads in overhead. We all want to save money – but we don’t want to sacrifice productivity. We want to increase productivity – but not at the expense of our profits.
For business owners who haven’t yet switched to the cloud – its not that they haven’t heard how “cool” it is. The questions come down to – is it right for my business? Will it be difficult to integrate? and at what cost?
So here are five reasons to help you make the leap forward:
Unlike non-cloud solutions – you are paying regularly for the hardware – upgrading the hardware – maintaining the hardware, cleaning the hardware – running the hardware – keeping the hardware cool – keeping someone around who can figure out what else you need to do with the hardware – paying the maintenance guy to run holes for wires – paying employees to sit around looking pretty while the IT guy figures out why no one can get work done. If you don’t think that kind of stuff adds up over time then you’re either very lucky, or not very intimate with your books. The cloud may not eliminate issues on your daily use PCs – but it sure takes that sting out of running the servers.
2) Wiggle Room
Inevitably, if you run servers in your office, there will be a day – unexpected and usually in the middle of an important conference call – that you simply run out of space on your server(s). Now the IT guy has to pick up some more hardware.. upgrade the server… wait, can’t do that while its on. “Everyone in the office – take an extra long lunch today! We’re sticking a metal rectangle inside of a metal rectangle. This could take a while…” On the cloud – you can pay for the space you need… when you need it. Don’t need a lot? Pay for a little. Need more? A few clicks can usually get you there – and at worst, a few more clicks than that will get you there.
3) An Ounce of Prevention
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” For anyone who has ever paid the bill for data recovery on a crashed machine… you know exactly how monetarily accurate this analogy is. The IT world knows that whatever is on that disk could make or break your business. It’s no secret that they can and will charge just about anything for this service – knowing you are backed into a corner. Of course, this doesn’t describe every data recovery business, but its common enough to be worth mentioning. Trust us – if you have never faced this issue – you never want to. With the cloud – your data is backed up securely in a protected location.
4) Employee Harmony
We know what you’re thinking – and no – the cloud will not dispel water cooler gossip or keep John’s hands off of Susan’s lunch in the break-room. However – John can work from home and eat from his own fridge. The cloud allows everyone to access necessary applications simultaneously – whether they’re in the next room – the next state – or delayed on a train on their way to work. Everyone has up-to-date and synchronized information at their disposal… and the key player in the office who just broke his foot can work from his bed at home if he wants to.
