Dynamic Business

With new technologies making the workforce increasingly mobile, it’s important for small businesses to be able to stay connected wherever they are. Cloud computing allows business owners to do just that, saving time and money, whilst improving productivity.

To remain competitive, small businesses need to be available to respond quickly and work together whether in the field, in the office or on the way to work.

New technologies enable businesses of all sizes to seamlessly stay connected, work remotely and collaborate across different geographies and time zones. Australian small businesses can adopt these technologies and improve their ‘on-the-go’ productivity in a cost-effective and secure way.

Many of the tools that are used in the business world today just don’t work the way that people do. Take the example of a team working on a single document; they are constrained today by the need for a single author to own the document and email it around as an attachment. They then have the job of consolidating document updates into a master document. Imagine how effective the same team could be if the document was based on the internet and the team could all access and update the document live on the web, editing and discussing it in real time. In this model, an office and desk are purely optional. Merging documents and tracking changes from email attachments is a thing of the past.

These collaboration tools, part of the new paradigm of ‘cloud computing’, free employees from being tethered to the office and enable managers to work with their teams while they’re on the road or working remotely. Cloud computing technologies also save companies money. It’s a classic win-win for all involved.
As a small business manager, these new online tools can make life easier for you and your employees, and enable your workforce to be mobile, seamlessly connected and flexible.

What is cloud computing?
The small business owner of today undertakes a huge number of roles: CEO, COO, CMO, HR Manager and many more. With the growing reach of the internet, small business owners are now in a position to improve one of their more time-consuming roles, that of IT Manager. Many mundane but necessary tasks, such as updating hardware and managing servers, are no longer the inevitable consequences of running a business.

Small business’ approach to IT is being redefined by the internet as more applications are delivered and hosted online via a trend known as cloud computing. Cloud computing helps multi-tasking business owners transfer their efforts from IT maintenance to the areas where their true expertise lies; making their business more profitable and, hopefully, making their lives more enjoyable.

Cloud computing is a simple concept: software and services are delivered over the web and through a browser, with no server or client software to install. Cloud computing tools are available any time, anywhere, from any device connecting to the Internet. Businesses call it SaaS (Software as a Service) or cloud computing. For most people, it’s just the web.

These services are hosted by a third party which means all headaches associated with maintaining on-premise systems are removed. Your provider takes care of it all. And there are inherent benefits to productivity and flexibility of working by having everything accessible via the internet.
If you send email, have a blog, have ever posted photos online or have searched for information on the internet, then you’re already part the cloud computing movement. As we charge towards this new age of computing, what’s clear is that our lives as consumers, as business people, and as citizens are already changing. The cloud makes it inexpensive and easy to collaborate and share information, wherever you and your employees are.

A growing trend
With improved connectivity and less expensive hardware, significant innovation has occurred in the consumer space. Technologies have evolved to fulfill the needs of the user, not the other way around – that means more sharing of information, more interacting with others, more conversations with our friends and colleagues.

Cloud computing is designed to make life easy. Many of us are now happy to access our banking information, download all our music and make social arrangements online. Having adapted to these practices, it is natural for people to begin to wonder why the same highly efficient methods of storage and collaboration are not so widespread within businesses. Think about how easy it is to find information on the internet versus how difficult it is to find information at work and you’ll see what we mean.

Cloud computing for businesses
The power of the internet provides the flexibility to create, share, access and collaborate with other workmates and other trusted parties. With cloud computing applications such as online word processors, online spreadsheets, online calendars and online presentations, your work and your office suddenly becomes accessible quickly and securely wherever you are. The fact that everything is online means that multiple users can access and work on documents simultaneously and edit them in real time. If you are working on a presentation with a colleague who works from home, you can both be viewing it online and see the edits being implemented on your screen as your colleague makes changes.

In short, no more emailing attachments to and fro between users, no more multiple edits and mark-ups, no more ‘versionitis’, no more having to carry around USB drives with the latest version of documents to access at home and no more “I have to pop into the office to access a document”. And if your PC crashes, you don’t lose all your data and information, you just log in from another PC.

You can also access your email from the airport or from your BlackBerry on the train. Or you can build an internal website to ensure employees have a central resource to information, just by a simple click of a button, securely accessible anywhere. All these things mean a lot when you’re working at the kind of pace required at a small business.

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