If your business has historically operated with on-premise IT infrastructure, it is likely well past time to consider the benefits of migrating your IT resources to the cloud. Over the last decade, the cloud has completely transformed the capabilities of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises; according to Multisoft, 80% of companies who move to the cloud experience significant positive changes within their IT infrastructure within six months, and 94% of SMBs realize security benefits they did not previously have with on-site services. This article briefly outlines five benefits of moving some or all of your IT resources to the cloud:
1. Empower your employees. Migrating to the cloud gives your employees instantaneous access to their work from almost anywhere. With the flexibility to connect with other team members from home, the airport, or pretty much anywhere with an internet connection, employees become more productive and more connected to their work — according to SkyHigh, the average employee at an enterprise uses 36 cloud-based services at work, ranging from collaboration programs to document management and file sharing systems.
2. Secure your data. Entrusting your data to an outside organization may feel intimidating, but selecting a trusted, experienced cloud-services provider is a best practice. In fact, improved data security is one of the biggest benefits of migrating to the cloud; IT firms and developers of cloud programs are keenly aware of potential threats to your data, so they invest heavily in ways to protect it. Cloud-based setups can do much to minimize the losses associated with disparate threats ranging from hardware failures to ransomware.
3. Save money. According to Multisoft, migrating to the cloud can be up to 40 times more cost-effective than on-premise IT infrastructure for SMBs. If your business is not yet in the cloud, you know how expensive it is to fix, manage, update, and license necessary on-site resources. Moving to the cloud will almost always allow you to cut your overall IT budget, as the most expensive and burdensome activities (upgrades, updates, maintenance, etc.) will be transferred to your cloud-services provider.
4. Improve agility. Switching from on-premise IT to the cloud allows your business to stay flexible and iterate smoothly without having to work around bulky and expensive infrastructure investments. Further, on-site software implementations are both time-consuming and costly — and if an implementation takes too long, it is entirely possible that your company’s priorities may shift away from needing the software at all before it has even been fully adopted. Using Software as a Service (SaaS) packages allows you to expediently experiment with different cloud-based software packages and adjust accordingly without wasting as much time and money.
5. Enhance scalability. If you are hoping to improve scalability, trading in your on-premise IT infrastructure for a cloud-based system is a great place to start. As you add employees, products, locations, compliance requirements, and other layers of complexity, cloud-based programs generally scale naturally — and cost-effectively — on a user-by-user basis.
Conclusion
Overall, the cloud provides increased levels of flexibility, security, and scalability while offering the potential for reduced IT costs. It is important to do your research and find cloud-based IT service providers who have the experience and resources to conduct migrations thoroughly and responsibly. If you would like to discuss potential cloud migration strategies for your business, contact Qnectus today.