Cloud computing has been in the headlines for a couple years now, but small business owners may assume that a new technological fad only applies to established businesses. However, the cloud is uniquely suited to meet the needs of a small business trying to grow quickly. If you are an entrepreneur or own a small business, here are seven reasons why you should look into cloud computing.
1. Less Startup Costs
Cloud computing has been in the headlines for a couple years now, but small business owners may assume that a new technological fad only applies to established businesses. However, the cloud is uniquely suited to meet the needs of a small business trying to grow quickly. If you are an entrepreneur or own a small business, here are seven reasons why you should look into cloud computing.
1. Less Startup Costs
Many potential entrepreneurs are inhibited by the huge upfront costs required in order to get a business up and running. Investing in technology can be particularly consuming, but with the cloud, it doesn’t have to be. A cloud database can provide everything from the basic infrastructure to ready-to-use applications, so business owners only have to plug in and go. Meanwhile, they are only paying for the use of the service rather than buying all of the hardware and software and maintaining it.
2. IT Maintenance Outsourcing
Maintenance is a huge long-term cost that eats up the business owner’s time if they are doing it themselves or the time of the IT manager whose time would be better spent working on strategic projects. In either case, cloud providers take care of all of their own maintenance, freeing up those resources considerably.
3. Pay as You Go
Most cloud providers offer varying options of a pay as you go plan. Some have you pay based on the amount of storage space you use, while others have you pay for the amount of time you are using a particular application. The benefit is you are only paying for technological resources as you need them and not maintaining extra servers or software licenses that the company is getting no value from.
4. Spend More Time on Business Goals
Small business owners don’t start a business to be an IT manager and repairman, but sometimes they find themselves comparing computer servers or fixing glitches instead of building their business. Outsourcing those duties to those with more experience in that area frees up the business owner’s time to work on his or her business goals and do more of what he or she enjoys.
5. Compete with Larger Companies
Small businesses can’t afford to build up all of the resources that larger, more established companies have access to. Big data, for example, would be too expensive for most small businesses to collect and analyze on their own. Cloud computing overcomes this variable by offering a host of business applications including big data as a service.
6. Better Collaboration
More than likely you already use the cloud for project collaboration by sharing documents on Google docs or Dropbox. By using the cloud for all of your business applications, any employees or clients who need to access a project can log in from wherever they are, saving you the headache of coordinating multiple copies of documents.
7. Scalability
A huge benefit of cloud computing is that the amount of server space you have can automatically scale based on demand, so if you see a sudden spike in activity or start growing fairly quickly your computer system will grow with you. Then, when activity dips down the system will automatically scale back. This saves you money as you are only paying for the space you are using and helps to avoid downtime from the system becoming overloaded.
Clearly every business is different, and there are many different ways cloud computing could be beneficial. How has cloud computing benefited your business? Do you feel that it could be beneficial for you?