What Exactly Is The Cloud?

Do you watch your favorite shows from Netflix on your tablet? Do you save files to Dropbox at work so you can work on them from home? Are you backing up your iPhone to the Apple iCloud? If you said yes to any of these, you are in fact already using The Cloud.

The Cloud, which is really just a metaphor for the Internet, is a very powerful tool for your business. Most businesses are using a small percentage of the available Cloud services like sharing documents with colleagues or across multiple devices, but don’t realize that they have just scratched the surface of the tremendous potential many services provide.

5 Benefits of The Cloud For Your Business

With an ongoing shift from office-based work to working on the go, from anywhere, on any device, The Cloud enables businesses to become more flexible, efficient, and profitable. Beyond efficiency, storage capacity, computing resources, or accessing your applications in the blink of an eye, here are the cloud’s top five business benefits.

Superior Security

Cloud skeptics worry that once company data exists outside of internal firewalls, they will experience a security breach and important data will be at risk. According to SuccessFactors, “security is actually increased when using cloud solutions due to strict ISO security standards that cloud providers must adhere to, in addition to the regular security audits.” Utilizing the cloud enables applications to securely store and backup data quickly so crucial information is never lost or stolen.

Reduced IT Costs

As new equipment and software continue to evolve, moving to cloud computing may reduce the costs associated with managing and maintaining IT systems. For example, your business would stop having to buy large amounts of software that will need to be replaced when it becomes obsolete and will begin to pay for access to the latest versions of only what you need. Since you will not be buying and installing new software on your systems, your hardware needs become far more basic. You will simply need your devices to connect to the Internet, and each of your employees will be able to connect from whatever type of devices they choose. By utilizing cloud computing services, your operating costs, implementation times, and the costs associated with system upgrades can be greatly reduced.

Scalability

Businesses often need the ability to scale up and down for changes related to staff, sales cycles, and seasonal demands. The Cloud gives your business the ability to scale your technology needs to meet these changes as well. Purchasing hardware and software for these kinds of shifts in your business can be expensive and time-consuming. Costly investments in technology that does not scale with your changing business are avoidable by consulting with your team of Computer Medic On Call.

Collaboration

Whether employees are working across the hall from each other or in different countries, it used to be difficult to share or collaborate on documents, presentations, or projects. Often the only option was to email a document to your colleagues and begin the tangled web of figuring out who had the most up-to-date version or which edits were made to which version. The Cloud now allows employees to share information in a much less time-consuming fashion. For example, rather than emailing the presentation to specific individuals or a group of people, applications like Soonr allows users to quickly share files and collaborate on changes and edits in real-time. Cloud computing allows employees to be more efficient and productive than when they were using traditional collaboration techniques.

Adoption Has Never Been Easier

Technology is a train without brakes, so adopting and maintaining new solutions must be easy for the employees that use it and the technical staff that supports it. With the ongoing convergence of consumer and business devices and solutions, it is getting easier to integrate a variety of solutions that rely on all of the devices used by your employees. Using Soon at the office is the same process on all devices that they utilize daily, meaning that there is a lot less time spent on training and adoption.