While establishing a business is a dream seen by many, making it successful is not everyone’s cup of tea. You have to outsmart your competition, put out the best available business idea, enhance your organizational performance, and steadily grow your customer base.
Many businesses rely on different methods like using attractive marketing strategies, extensive advertising, leveraging modern technology, and following a focused customer-orientated approach. And this is where financial resources and the current IT setup play a crucial role.
While operating as an SME also carries several advantages like rapid adaptation to market change and customer flexibility, it is also a fact that their finances generally limit their operations.
The worst hit of them is their IT competitiveness. They lack the necessary resources to procure the latest technology and hence significantly lag in this digital world. Also, using a traditional in-house setup has other constraints like inferior security quality, high capital investments, unreliable business continuity, and scale-up inflexibility.
However, like other obstacles, SMEs have found a solution to their IT limitations – the cloud.
You can easily avail of cloud services from multiple service providers out there. Going for cloud computing has everything that traditional in-house IT setups do not offer. They are more cost-effective, offer scalability, and are much more secure. Also, they are easy to implement and can be quickly adapted to.
And with 82% of SMEs reporting reduced operational costs due to adopting cloud, and 59% of them enjoying significantly better productivity, it is a no-brainer that cloud computing is their new hotbed for IT investments.
So, if you are an SME and still haven’t gone for the cloud, here are the top reasons why other SMEs are now opting for cloud technology.
Fewer IT Costs
This is one of the most significant benefits and the most preferred reason for SMEs migrating to the cloud. Setting up your IT infrastructure requires a substantial amount of fiscal resources, something SMEs cannot afford to freely spare. Also, the necessary maintenance and up-gradation with time mandates further investment and considerably worsens their financial burden.
Opting for the cloud empowers them to use their organizational resources better and save their IT expenses. Since everything from the IT infrastructure to its maintenance is managed by the service provider, moving to the cloud gives them the much-needed economic advantage. They can enjoy premium IT services at comparatively competitive prices. They need to pay a monthly fee, and are freed from the traditional in-house IT investments.
Superior Data Security
The businesses of today must have credible cybersecurity integrity to combat the growing cyberattacks. The cybercrime-related costs are projected to rise to an all-time high of $10.5 trillion with an expected ransomware attack every 11 seconds. Also, what’s more problematic is that SMEs are at greater risk of these cyberattacks as 66% of them have experienced such attacks with most of them lacking effective measures to mitigate them.
A cloud environment is guarded by multiple security layers and is regularly updated to counter modern threats. It has the latest IDPS software, innovative AI tools, constant threat surveillance, and firewalls. Also, there is a round-the-clock IT team for monitoring and prevention of any cyberattack.
Business Continuity and Data Recovery
Apart from their finances, data storage and its handling also make things challenging for any SMEs. However, most SMEs employ traditional methods for storing and retrieving their data, which are rather inefficient and are easily affected by factors like environmental conditions, hardware failures, and human-prone errors.
Leveraging cloud technology has allowed SMEs to significantly boost their data handling capabilities and carry out their business operations without getting affected by the data unavailability. Since data in the cloud is stored at strategically-placed remote servers, they are not affected by natural events like earthquakes, floods, etc. Also, the data is regularly backed up, with no data redundancy and complexity issues. And as information is maintained at multiple locations, it is easy to retrieve it lost.
Note: please check this blog for the more information about the IT Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Guide for Accounting Firms
Improved Cost-Effectiveness
Another main reason SMEs are ditching the traditional in-house IT infrastructure and moving to the cloud is its cost-effectiveness. Traditionally, housing the IT infrastructure has multiple capital requirements. Apart from the necessary IT investments and a need for in-house IT personnel, you must invest in physical security, office space, and other miscellaneous expenses. This greatly strains your financial resources, which most SMEs cannot afford.
Adopting cloud computing has empowered SMEs to become more cost-effective and do much more with less. Since everything related to IT infrastructure is managed by your provider, you don’t have to spend considerably on that front. Also, as the cloud is accessible via the Internet from anywhere, you can freely implement remote working options within your organization and save up on office maintenance costs.
Scalability
Last but a significantly crucial factor – infrastructure flexibility. Setting an in-house IT setup has just more than the traditional financial limitations. It carries other Infrastructure-related constraints that can slow down a SMEs progress in this fast-paced world.
Firstly, they are not flexible. Any need to scale up requires considerable capital feeding with meticulous beforehand planning. Also, the modern upgrades may not be compatible with the existing hardware, which again creates problems during scale-up.
Moving to the cloud empowers the SMEs and gives them the much-needed infrastructure flexibility. Any need for scaling up/down or extra storage requirements can be easily met by contacting your service provider. Instead of waiting for a week or month for your infrastructure needs, cloud technology allows you to do that in mere minutes.
And, if you are an SME whose business fluctuates according to the peak seasons, you don’t have to worry about your extra resources getting wasted as you can quickly scale down when required.
Conclusion
If you look at the benefits cloud computing brings for SMEs, you will quickly understand why they are finally moving away from the traditional in-house setup. A cloud setup has much more potential for growth. Also, it helps them overcome their financial handicap and increase their organizational competitiveness.
It makes them more productive, efficient and yet retains their much-needed economic advantage. So, next time you wonder if SMEs should let go of the traditional in-house IT setup, close your eyes and say YES!