On-premise systems may have worked in the past, but as business and computing continues to evolve the need for more flexible solutions must also arise. Here are four signs your enterprise business should move to the cloud.
The cloud is an invaluable resource for enterprise companies. It’s continually evolving day by day, offering great convenience and flexibility to businesses as applications and services like Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce improve thanks to seamless online upgrades. Gone are the days of in-house computing systems with a steep overheard and rusty 20th century hardware—unless you’re still stuck in the past. In that case, you’re likely experiencing some cloud envy, and you may recognize these four signs that it's time for your enterprise business to move to the cloud:
1. Your Team Travels Often
If you’re a mid-size to large enterprise company, chances are high that your employees are scattered all over the globe. To make matters easier for them, and for IT resources, it would be best to grant everyone access to the important services and tools they need when out of the office. The cloud can provide an entire office productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop with ease and less cost and effort than using an on-premise system.
2. Costs are High
The costs of keeping an on-premise system going can become quite high. Installing all the hardware, software, and hiring a team to manage it all—upgrading the servers, day-to-day server maintenance, fixing network issues, testing various plans—can take its toll after a while. With cloud technology, you can roll out a service such as Salesforce with relative ease, without any hardware or software to buy (or maintain), and with the added benefit of future online upgrades. Of course, a strategy to move all, or even some, of your resources online can still cost a hefty sum and a lot of effort, so be sure to have a meeting with the folks over in Finance and figure out the best way to tap into that SaaS in the sky.
3. You’re Expanding Quickly
Successful companies will grow and eventually require a more flexible, more robust way to manage employees, host vital infrastructure, and unify critical tasks such as backups and bookkeeping. Paper-based invoices, spreadsheets, and folders can only go so far in a small office, while a cloud-based accounting system can provide a convenient, centralized hub available wherever employees may need it. Plus: Unlimited backups. The importance of automatically uploading important data to the cloud cannot be overstated.
4. Data Compliance and Security is an Issue
The importance of data compliance and of cloud-based security can’t be overstated either, even though enterprise data security in general has received a bum rap over the years. Deservedly so, too. Data privacy breaches are on the rise, but not necessarily because of cloud-based security. In fact, the cloud is barely to blame at all—the infamous Equifax breach of 2017 was because of a website flaw, not the cloud. And even though it’s far from flawless, the cloud is more trusted than on-premises security thanks to on-demand technology, automatic updates, and robust controls, according to 78 percent of IT professionals in a 2017 survey.
Further reading:
Don’t let data security concerns hold you back from using Microsoft Office 365
Mastering GDPR Data Compliance for Microsoft Office 365
