How Cloud is The Best Option for Small Business Growth and Survival

In the current age of the Internet, it has become much easier for people to think about and start doing business online. People can either grow their local business with the help of the Internet or start a small business in a specific niche.

But the ease of doing business comes with the challenge of increasing competition in almost every field. Small and medium-sized companies must compete with already established big players in the market. Indeed, it is a tough time for them to survive in the market.

One important parameter that can back them up and provide the required support is advanced technology. The modern business world is highly dependent on leading technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Cloud Computing. In fact, these technologies are giving small businesses an edge over their competitors.

Here, we are going to talk only about cloud computing and how it helps small businesses to stand tall among their competitors.

How Cloud Computing Helps Small and Medium Businesses

The world of business in the past was not even closer to its present form ever before. It was widely accepted that small businesses had a little chance of surviving in the market in front of the big competitors.

But time has changed now. With the help of cloud computing, small-sized businesses are paving their way into the markets without the fear of survival.

Gartner forecasts worldwide public cloud revenue to grow 17.3 percent in 2019.The cloud adoption rate has increased manifolds amongst businesses in diverse fields, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

This has happened because of the benefits of cloud that people can take advantage of, which are detailed as follows –

1. Ultimate Data Security

If you run a small business, you know the criticality of your business-related data. No matter whether you sell products or offer services as a part of your business, you are responsible for keeping the records of sales transactions, order details, customer data, etc. safe.

In general, all such data is saved on local system setup in your office. Similarly, certain business applications and software need to be installed locally to support business processes. But the fact says that neither the data nor the applications are safe in the local computers.

The system may get infected with malware, or hardware get corrupted, leading to loss of crucial data. A large enterprise may bear the effects of such data loss, but not the smaller businesses. It can even cause the complete liquidation of a small company.

If you think your office computer is the best place to store the business-related data, think twice.

As a solution to the risk of data loss, you can opt for cloud technology. It will safeguard your data and even provide disaster recovery features for disruptive events like earthquakes, storms, etc. The stored data gets regularly replicated between data centers located in different geographical locations to ensure its safety.

Let’s say if you run a small CPA firm, you must be using QuickBooks or similar other accounting software regularly. To minimize the risk of data loss, you can choose QuickBooks hosting services and keep the data on the cloud.

Recommend Reading – 5 Golden Tips To Secure Your Data on the Cloud

2. Flexibility to Do Work Anywhere, Anytime

Time is money for all business owners, especially the small businesses who have just started and are playing for high stakes with small investment. Another fascinating fact about the markets is that consumers are well-aware about what they are paying for. They expect the utmost attention to details, quickest response to queries, and best quality products or services.

To serve the customers well and deal with their issues, you need to be super-actively available to them. You can’t say you will do some work only when you reach your office the next day. You may lose some customers because of delays in meeting the project deadline.

The hard part – you can’t work upon the business-related data and applications whenever required if they are only accessible through your office computers.

To save time and become highly flexible in doing your work, cloud technology can help you out. By choosing cloud hosting services for your business data, you will be able to access it anytime and anywhere, as required.

If you had faced situations wherein you just could not work for your customers because of inaccessibility to business data, now is the right time to hire a cloud hosting service provider.

3. Improved Work Efficiency

Running a small business is not a small task as it may seem. It requires you to work on multiple facets of it altogether, be it data analysis, client handling, and resource optimization.

Ultimately, the success of your small business depends on how efficiently you and your team function. The more the number of customers you deal with, the bigger will be the volume of data to be handled.

You may need to share a file of data with a few team members for them to work upon it individually. But sharing the data to and fro even for smaller changes, and then saving it in multiple computer systems becomes a highly redundant task. It can make you lose efficiency at work with time, which will not be suitable for your business.

To be more productive at work, it is important for you to choose cloud hosting. A file of data saved and edited on the cloud need not be shared multiple times with several users. You can make it accessible to authorized users who can make real-time changes in it and get them saved in the cloud for later use.

Simply put, cloud technology can make things easily manageable for your business. Thus, you can plan for its growth rather than worrying about the redundant tasks to be done.

4. Money Savings

To keep your business-related data safe and secure is essential.

Think of it this way –

If you do not opt for cloud hosting, you will need to invest in buying and maintaining local IT infrastructure. Alongside, you will need to hire a few IT professionals to take care of the technical issues in the systems. Even after investing in all this, you won’t be able to eliminate the risk of data loss completely.

Comparatively, cloud hosting services are lower in cost and come with a good number of benefits. For your small business, cost savings is highly significant as you can put the saved money into use for the business growth and expansion plans.

To Sum It Up

For small and medium-sized businesses, cloud computing is highly advantageous as it simplifies the work to a good extent. For further growth of your business, it is important you utilize this advanced technology as much as possible.

If you want to discuss a cloud-hosting plan tailored for your business, connect with our experts at +1-855-223-4887.