Your small company can look and act like a big business by using cloud based communications applications. Switching to cloud-based software does more than make your business look good from the perspective of customers, vendors, and competitors; using the cloud offers much more than a cosmetic makeover of how your business looks from the outside. Deploying cloud-based software actually makes it run better, too.
Operate Like a Big Business
As a small business owner, you probably had dreams of operating a big business in the future when you first started out. Actually, the idea may not be as far in the future as you think. While you may still be a sole proprietor, working with a laptop from a spare bedroom, or manage a small office with less than five employees, you can run your business as smoothly as if it were a big company. Customers who visit your website will not be able to discern the size of your business, but they might quickly come to assume that it is a thriving enterprise based on your quality of service.
While, in actuality, you may not have a big business, you can borrow the same infrastructure used by a medium to large business—namely, using cloud-based applications to run every phase of your business seamlessly.
The reason you can create this illusion of size and performance is because you will not need software, servers, and IT staff to run your operations. Instead, you will deploy “on premise” cloud-based apps to access the infrastructure maintained by a large software provider.
How Cloud Computing Works
The best way to understand how cloud computing works is to look at some common examples: your Google, Yahoo, or Hotmail account is a cloud-based service. You can use these services without installing anything and without any doubt when you log in whether or not you will be able to read emails, send emails, upload files, or download attachments. You have full confidence that you will be able to do what you intend because everything runs effortlessly without hiccups.
Another example is Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Unlike similar office software that runs on your local hard-drive or on your office server, you will not have to install and configure the software, occasionally install patch files, deal with creeping obsolescence as new versions come on the market, or worry about hiring an IT professional if there is a glitch in software performance. By paying a small subscription fee, everything is done for you behind the scenes. You can use Office Communications Online, Live Meeting, Sharepoint Online, and Exchange Online without a second thought about technology. You can also easily share data within your office or between offices because there are no applications, documents, or files that you will need to pull up from the hard-drive of your personal computer to share via email.
How Cloud Computing Can Benefit Your Business
Now that you have an idea of how cloud computing works, how exactly can it improve your business?
Here are five ways:
- Cloud computing will make it easy to make your employees perform better. Your employees need not be at their desk in your office to work; they can work from anywhere–at home, on the road, or even overseas. With remote workers providing your business with flexibility and mobility, you may not even need employees…you can just hire out all the work to freelancers. Moreover, with cloud computing being so straightforward, you will not need to facilitate training classes because almost everything is intuitive. Even if your business does happen to be using complicated software, employees can simply follow instructions from a few training videos.
- Cloud computing will reduce your cost of doing business. All your basic functions will be available at your fingertips without the need to buy a server or buy lots of software. Your subscription will include a full suite of relevant software.
- Cloud computing will make collaboration a cinch. All work can be accessed in real time, without the need to send files back and forth through emails.
- Cloud computing will make your business operations indestructible. You will not have to worry about hardware breakdowns, lost data due to malfunctioning software, or a natural disaster wiping out your business. Even if you forget your laptop at a coffee shop, your business will not be lost because all your data, application, and files will still be available on the cloud.
- Finally, cloud computing will be easy to use because your information will always accessible and it will always be protected by secure systems.
When you operate your small business like a big business, there is no reason why you will not eventually actually become a big business.
