In the past few years, a dramatic surge has been witnessed in the number of companies who opted for a cloud-based solution to leverage their business. The ubiquity of mobile devices and broadband internet access have made cloud computing a viable alternative for businesses worldwide.
The technology that started with using applications on local machines slowly transitioned to hosting the same on remote cloud location. In fact, several studies suggest that businesses which adopted cloud-based solutions experienced around 20% growth over competitors who are non-cloud computing users.
Cloud-based solutions are computing services offered to businesses to facilitate data storage, access to web-based applications, easy backup, remote work facilitation, automatic syncing, etc. Here are the 10 Ways Cloud-Based Solutions Necessary For Business Growth.
There are three layers in cloud computing – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Applications/Software as a Service (SaaS). Gradually, cloud based-solutions are becoming the new normal because it provides businesses the opportunity to small businesses to access high-end technologies, that were earlier restricted for use by large IT companies only.
Cloud-based solutions are the ultimate tool that contributes to the cash flow, productivity and efficiency of your business, and some of them let you save money as well. Additionally, there are many more advantages of cloud-based solutions for a business, and we will take you through all of them one by one.
Improved Cybersecurity
For companies that store their data at the local level, lost laptops and storage devices could cause a major problem, and the cost a company would have to incur to recover all this cost is huge.
However, companies which opt for cloud computing can store all the data in the cloud, which makes it easier to retrieve data whenever necessary, without worrying about a storage device or machine.
Easily Scalable
Cloud services offer the option to increase or decrease resources as per requirement. If you are an eCommerce business that is growing rapidly, you need to scale-up your services in order to accommodate more traffic and users, by using the cloud platform.
When there is no requirement, you can reduce the resources by scaling-down. Operational flexibility is the most important feature of cloud computing that benefits thousands of businesses.
Easy Disaster Recovery
In order to survive in today’s digital world, there is no doubt that businesses need to thrive on disaster recovery strategies and an active data backup to protect the valuable assets of the company. Whether there is a power failure, natural disaster, or any other crisis occurs, your data would be stored in the cloud.
Therefore, there is no threat of data loss, as it has been stored in a safe and secure location. Generally, it is difficult for small businesses to afford expensive on-premise disaster recovery systems. In this situation, the role of cloud-based storage solutions comes into play.
Access To The Best Technologies
Access to some state-of-the-art tools and technologies is one of the biggest advantages of cloud computing, as earlier, it was only limited to the large companies. Today, even small businesses can compete with the bigger organizations and disrupt the market successfully.
Enhanced Efficient Collaboration
With the introduction of collaboration in cloud computing, businesses are able to mingle across geographical or organizational borders, and people belonging to different teams can edit, upload, or access the same data and documents from anywhere and at any time.
Therefore, virtually there is a real-time collaboration, which ensures that teams iterate more efficiently and complete their deliverables quickly. Collaboration within the team members is a critical foundation of business success, and as the remote workforce continues to grow, cloud computing is an effective solution.
Increased Cost-Effectiveness
Opting for a cloud-based solution means that you pay for only the resources that are utilized, instead of investing on expensive hardware.
Choosing a pay-as-you-go plan helps in reducing infrastructure and operational costs as you do not have to buy or maintain networking equipment, processing power, or extra physical storage. The ease with which a cloud infrastructure can be set up by automating processes, makes it more business friendly.
They Are Environment-Friendly
Adopting a cloud-based solution is seen as an environmentally friendly practice by socially responsible organizations, rather than investing in on-site servers. Contrary to their on-site server counterparts, cloud-based solutions require less space and infrastructure.
Switching to cloud-based solutions means that there would be more efficient operations, less manufacturing of hardware, and minimal discard or recycling of hardware.
Reduced Carbon Footprint
Companies that use cloud computing platforms to scale-up or scale-down their resources, only the server capacity needs to be changed. Since a certain part of the energy is used in this process, the chances of leaving large carbon footprints gets reduced to an extent. This would not have been possible if the cloud computing platforms were not developed.
Ability To Launch New Products
Unlike the traditional software development cycle, in which the product has to go through a long and time-consuming process of going back and forth amongst development, cloud computing has made the cycle more efficient.
Developers do not have to worry about infrastructure demands or maintenance, rather they can concentrate on testing, building, and deploying the application. In fact, updating and releasing new versions frequently, empowers workers to be more productive as enhancements in software can offer immediate upgrades to existing features.
Expand To New Markets
Earlier, businesses had to hire a physical office space, and rely on a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to set up the infrastructure of your firewall or network. However, with businesses going virtual, and no requirement to rent an office space, all you need to do is train your employees on how to use their existing cloud infrastructure. This approach can help you save your money, which can be used in strategic initiatives, marketing, sales, or venture into a new market.
As you could see, with cloud-based solutions, businesses get access to a host of benefits that traditional solutions can’t provide.
However, with the rise in the adoption of cloud computing solutions, studies also state that organizations have started reporting doubts regarding the security of cloud-based solutions.
They are looking forward to resolving these compliance and security worries by extending the organization’s policies to data in the cloud. This would enable more organizations to benefit from the advantages that cloud computing services can offer.
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