
February 15th, 2019 by Nick Deeks
Cloud computing has been quickly adopted by businesses of all sizes, keen to take advantage of flexibility, elasticity, simplicity and cost savings. Yet, for many small and mid-sized businesses, a range of factors could mean shifting technology components to the cloud may not deliver all the expected benefits.
Cloud proponents point to reduced IT complexity and an ability to scale resources as key reasons cloud platforms make sense. They argue that, rather than investing capital in infrastructure that must then be managed in-house, a business is better off making use of hosted resources provided and maintained by an external party.
These arguments certainly stack up for large companies. Many have opted to shift some of their IT resources to a cloud provider while keeping sensitive applications and data in-house. Having access to in-house IT teams means the task of managing such a hybrid infrastructure is readily achievable.
For SMEs the picture is somewhat different. Lacking the same in-house technical skills, many can struggle to link cloud-based resources to in-house applications and data. As a result, many are tempted to go ‘all in’ on the cloud and shift their entire infrastructure to a hosted platform.
Cloudy misconceptions
Unfortunately, many find the subsequent experience to be somewhat disappointing and the business benefits they expected to achieve from making the move simply don’t materialise. Some of the reasons disappointment occurs include:
An SME cloud checklist
For these reasons, it is important for an SME to plan carefully before shifting IT resources to a cloud platform or taking advantage of some of the many Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that are now on the market.
It’s vital that the business understands exactly what benefits it will achieve and any issues or challenges that might need to be overcome. The five most important factors every SME should consider are:
By carefully examining each of these factors, an SME can be confident any adoption of cloud-based capacity or technology will deliver the business benefits that are anticipated. There is no doubt the cloud has much to offer business, however embracing it with eyes wide open is the best approach to take.
About the author
Sreeni Raghavan is the founder and CEO of TeleApps, a solution company for enterprise communications and customer experience solutions. This includes technologies like corporate telephony, unified communications, collaboration, corporate networking (wired and wireless), security, telco & WAN services, contact centre and even IT services.