Take the leap of faith into the cloud

06 Jul Take the leap of faith into the cloud

The ‘cloud’ has become a real buzzword in recent years and has revolutionised the business industry. In 2015 a total $67 Billion was spent on public cloud computing services which is predicted to increase to $162 Billion by 2020 and with the average company using over 1427 cloud-based services, this is no surprise. So why are there still companies that haven’t jumped on this opportunity?

Your business can be given the tools that previously only million dollar enterprises would have access to with the only infrastructure needed being a computer and internet connection. If you haven’t yet migrated to the cloud, here are a few reasons why you should.

EMPOWERING AND COLLABORATING YOUR BUSINESS

Programs that are cloud-based can be used anytime, anywhere and on almost any device. With this, you can collaborate with employees across different regions without having to rely on slow-paced and inconvenient emails and phone calls. Everything is seen in real-time and team projects come together with ease. Services such as OneDrive and SharePoint are perfect for sharing files and collaborating with co-workers effortlessly. If you would like to read more on these services, see our blog about how Office 365 can send your business sky high! With these new capabilities you can accelerate the time between thought and action and take advantage of more business opportunities.

MANAGE YOUR GROWTH WITH EASE

The services on the cloud all embrace the concept of elasticity. Before the cloud era, businesses had issues with resource management as everything had to be predicted. Now with the unparalleled scalability of the cloud, you can adjust your resources on the spot as demand rises and falls. Deloitte states that SMBs embracing the cloud are outperforming those that are adopting slower and have shown a 26% faster growth rate on average. Their survey indicates that the average SMB spend about 3-5% of its revenue on IT, but the results speak for themselves.

SAVING YOUR PRECIOUS DOLLARS

Migrating to the cloud can save you up to 21% per year over the traditional hardware and software of in-house hosting. Working in the cloud means you don’t need to pay for the maintenance and updates of your hardware and software as it is all taken care of by your provider. Another major cost for any company is staffing, this is eliminated by using the cloud as the need for excess technical staff is not mandatory. Each cloud provider has their own dedicated team that are available 24/7/365 to help you with any problems. Everything is covered in a small monthly fee which allows you to put your money towards more valuable assets. This alone is 38% of the reason most SMBs switch to the cloud.

PROTECTINGBUSINESS

Security has proven to be a major concern in the cloud computing industry. 53% of companies not yet using the cloud say security is why, and over 91% of companies who are using the cloud have concerns.  However, cloud providers embrace a high standard of security to protect both your company and its data. They have a devoted team that focuses on monitoring, absorbing and dispersing any attacks on their servers. Systems are in place both on their servers and at physical data centers to protect every piece of information. You have complete control over how your information is secured, how frequent backups occur and where those backups take place. One option available is to use the automatic geo-redundant backups in place at various providers. This automatically backs up your data to multiple random data centers which decreases the chance of tracking and malicious attacks.

BUSINESS UPTIME BEATING THE TIMES

Cloud services are very reliable in the terms of uptime with most providers promising a 24/7/365 support with a 99.90% availability. This promise was kept by all major cloud providers, their total downtime in 2015 is shown below.

Amazon Web Servers had a downtime of only 2 ½ hours which gives them an approximate 99.97% availability, followed by Microsoft Azure with an approximate 99.90% availability. When downtime does occur, providers do everything they can to fix the issue as soon as possible and provide you as much support as possible during the period of time.

LIKE THE SOUND OF THE CLOUD?

If these points would empower your business give CT4 a call now. We offer a Consulting service that is available to you at any time during the migration. We can assist you with solution design, application integration and transition services etc. The journey ahead of you is bright, and so is the future of our company with help from the cloud.