Cloud computing means running your software, storage, and servers over the internet instead of off a box in your office closet. You log in and work from wherever you are: the office, home, or the beach.
You almost certainly use it already without thinking about it. These are all cloud applications, the kind people also call SaaS, or Software as a Service:
- Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or other free email accounts
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
- Netsuite, Salesforce
- Constant Contact, Exact Target, MailChimp
- Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey
- Office 365
- All things Google (Search, Ads, Maps)
So why does moving more of your business to the cloud actually pay off? Here are the reasons that matter most.
It lowers your IT costs
This is the reason most companies move their network to the cloud, in part or completely. You spend less on software licenses, less on hardware like servers and workstations, and less on the IT support and upgrades that keep all of it running.
You can work from any device, anywhere
If you travel, have remote staff, or want to use an iPad on the road and a laptop at home, the cloud lets you work from any of those devices wherever you are. Your data lives in one place you can reach, store, retrieve, or recover with a few clicks.
Backup and disaster recovery happen on their own
The server in your office can be taken out by a virus, a corrupted update, a failed hard drive, a clumsy mistake, or a fire or flood. Put that server in the cloud and the math changes. If the building burned down tomorrow, you could buy a new laptop and be back to work the same day. Try that with a stack of tape drives, CDs, and USB sticks sitting in the same building that just flooded.
Cloud platforms also tend to stay up. They run at a scale that lets them pour money into security, redundancy, and failover that no single small business could match on its own.
It scales up and down with you
A ten-person shop and an enterprise with over 1,000 employees don't need the same IT. The cloud lets you add or cut capacity as your needs change, without buying physical infrastructure to match a peak you may never hit again. You also dodge the in-house maintenance and operational headaches that come with owning all that gear.
It can be more secure, not less
A lot of business owners assume keeping IT in-house is safer than handing data to a cloud provider. Often it's the opposite. Data security is a real concern for every business, whatever the size or industry, and reputable cloud services are held to cybersecurity standards, policies, and controls built to protect the integrity of the data they hold for you.
It's the greener option
Fewer physical servers means less equipment, less data center space, less e-waste, and less electricity. You cut your power bill and your footprint at the same time. Hard to argue with that.
Updates stop costing you downtime
Owning your own infrastructure means someone has to keep it patched and current, and patching often means downtime. Operations stall or slow to a crawl, productivity drops, and revenue goes with it. With the cloud, the provider rolls out the mandatory software and security updates in the background, so your team keeps working and your IT people spend their time on the business instead of babysitting servers.