Dynamic Business

It’s the growing importance of business information; how we access, store and use it, that has driven many businesses large and small to move towards cloud technology. The right business information needs to be in the right hands at the right time in order for your business to succeed. When your critical business information ends up in the wrong hands, or becomes inaccessible to you and your employees, either by accident or sabotage, your information can also become your greatest weakness.

Graeme Philipson of Connection Research points out that every major trend in IT over the past decade is moving us towards a cloud-based technology model. His definition of cloud technology is anything that allows for “computer resources to be accessible through the Internet rather than from a local computer”.

You’d probably already be familiar with cloud computing features, such as saving documents online, webmail or the delivery of software over the web. But it doesn’t end there. Cloud technology can also allow remote access to computer power, computing infrastructure and applications. It provides real business value by streamlining hardware and software while simultaneously giving IT budgets some breathing room; it fundamentally changes the IT infrastructure and, ultimately, is changing the way we secure data. In short, it opens computing power and resources to businesses of all sizes.

Scared to step onto ‘The Cloud’?  (You already have!)

Whether you like it not, your business is already an active user of cloud-based computing systems. Realistically, there are very few people or businesses that aren’t using the cloud in some form or other. Your business may have one or all of the following more popular cloud-based services.

• Email
  Got webmail or access to your emails outside the office? Yep, you’re already in the cloud. Some email solutions are hosted and stored entirely in the cloud, while others are a mix of local servers to store mail, with cloud technology employed to provide access through internet browsers or handheld devices.
• Websites
  A website is the essential virtual store front and a key means of interacting with your customers in cyber space. If you don’t run your website from a server from your premises, then it is ‘in the cloud’ through a third party host.
• Online storage collaboration and back-up
  Many businesses are realising it makes sense to subscribe to a cloud-based service which can keep your data secure and constantly available – to organisations and their partners – in the latest version wherever you access it. Devices have become expendable. The true value lies with the data that’s on them and that’s why a cloud based back-up service could help to reassure you by having everything in one safe and secure place – the cloud.

The advantages of moving a business to cloud technology are alluring, and deservedly so. Lower operational costs while having greater control, scalability and flexibility on demand, reduced power consumption and lower capital expenditure – appealing reasons for any business mind looking to turn more profit over from a business.