5 Reasons Why Moving Your Business to the Cloud Is a Good Idea

Have you ever dreamt of reducing the number of tools you need to run your business? Imagined just scattering the papers everywhere, moving to Mexico and changing your name?

It’s a common struggle for the majority of business owners. We’re drowning in outdated systems.

However, we live and do business in a digital world.

Moving your business to the cloud is an intuitive step forward.

In this post, we’ll discuss the five most important benefits of moving your business to the cloud.

1. Moving Your Business to the Cloud Saves Time and Money

The most important benefit is the fact that moving your business to the cloud reduces costs and saves time.

Back in the day, business owners documented everything on paper. This meant having to: prepare documents, make copies of them, store and label them, as well as spend hours on retrieval.

Finally, we’d all end up with stacks of folders that not even the most organized person in the world could make sense of.

Businesses today are more modern than that, digitalizing everything that can be digitalized.

However, even if you’re using on-premises software, you’re still spending a lot of time on data entry, as well as paying for hardware and tools that you may not even need.

First of all, you need to purchase servers or at least establish a data center.

Then, you’ll need someone to set it up and maintain it so nothing goes haywire. If it does, you’ll lose your data, and even your backups could be compromised (if you have them).

Traditional business is a zero-sum game. There are no winners.

Cloud computing, on the other hand, streamlines everything. It’s cost-effective.

You don’t have to purchase additional equipment or set up data centers just so you could keep all of your information in one place.

Even if you’re keeping actual printed copies of everything, you don’t have to worry about inordinate costs. Digitalization itself is beneficial, and cloud digitalization is even better. You don’t have to pay for dozens or different tools.

In fact, you don’t have to completely migrate to the cloud.

You can move some parts of your business operations to the cloud and keep everything else on premises. Similarly, you can use cloud solutions for certain aspects such as project management.

You can mix and match as much as you’d like.

Cloud service providers have a plethora of plans based on the amount of storage space, users, additional features, and other factors.

You can find a provider and a plan that fits your budget and your needs.

Flexible Payments

The majority of contemporary cloud software providers not only have different plans and pricing tiers, but they also don’t require you to pay exorbitant one-time setup or license fees.

Instead, cloud providers charge through subscriptions.

You’ll pay a fixed price every month if you want to keep using the cloud software.

If you want to switch after a while, you can.

If you want to scale up and get more features as your business grows, it’s only a matter of paying the difference.

Reduce Your Overhead Costs

In addition to hardware costs, traditional computing comes with other overhead costs such as energy, maintenance and storage costs.

Then, if you’ve already paid a license fee for particular software, you’ll want to stick to the same system. When you hire new team members, you’ll have to train them or pay the software provider for training.

On the other hand, the majority of cloud software is very simple and comes with knowledge bases.

Training is simple and there’s not a steep learning curve.

Maintenance, storage and utilities are all handled on the provider’s side.

2. Moving Your Business to the Cloud Improves Collaboration

If all of your partners and/or employees have to be in the same place to collaborate, then your tech isn’t doing you any favors.

One of the most overlooked benefits of moving your business to the cloud is that it improves collaboration immensely.

Cloud computing allows all of your partners and employees to stay on the same page, regardless of where they are or what they’re doing. Half of your team could be in Thailand and the other half in New York, and you’d still be able to keep your business running.

Your team members can make real-time updates, notes, and enter data as they receive it.

Then, every other team member who needs access can get it immediately. There’s no need to send long-winded emails or pick up the phone.

Knowledge sharing has always been a huge problem. In fact, an average worker spends 2.5 hours at work every day just retrieving information they need to do their job properly.

With cloud computing, your team members have immediate access to all the data they need. They can check up on each other, and you can make sure everyone’s staying on track.

Moving your business to the cloud will improve your communication, as well.

Just imagine how quickly you’ll be able to provide top-notch support to your customers when you know exactly what happened in the transaction, and review the notes your team members left.

If you’re running a business with both on-premise and field workers, you don’t have to worry about their communication.

Everyone can stay in the loop, no matter where they are.

Similarly, if you have a team with remote workers and freelancers, it’s easy to manage them all and ensure tasks are being handled. You can simply point them to your cloud solution where they can find all the information they need.

If you’re working on a project or handling different tasks, a cloud solution likeBreeze will ensure everyone stays on top of their tasks.

With Breeze, you will be able to:

• See all your tasks and projects in one place
• Access your dashboard no matter where you are
• Identify problems and obstacles
• Visualize your workflow
• Review performance
• Create perfectly timed schedules (and stick to them)
• Integrate Breeze with other tools you use (e.g. Slack, Freshbooks, and much more)
• Improve your productivity and efficiency while reducing your costs

These are just some of the benefits you’ll experience when you move your business to the cloud.

When your team members can stay in the loop and when you can review their performance and progress, as well as identify any problems before they’ve occurred, you’ll see how easy it is to run a profitable business.

3. Moving Your Business to the Cloud Improves Security

We live in the age of data breaches and security concerns.

However, in addition to digital hazards, there is also the fact that team members constantly lose devices, leave them unlocked, or connect to insecure WiFi networks.

If you store sensitive business information on your team members’ devices, you risk just about anyone accessing it, or losing it completely.

When you move your business to the cloud, all your sensitive information will be kept under lock and key.

Cloud providers pay special attention to security and encryption.

Your files will likely go through multiple security protocols to ensure no hacker or thief can intercept them; from passwords and two-factor authentication, to the provider’s internal security measures.

In fact, businesses claim they’ve experienced a 51% higher rate of security incidents with on-premises data centers, as opposed to the cloud.

Additionally, when you’re using cloud solutions, you don’t have to worry about maintenance or antivirus updates. This is why 94% of small businesses say they experienced security benefits they didn’t have with their on-premises solutions. Namely, the security measures were always updated on time because the providers’ teams are constantly making sure your data is safe.

Finally, cloud technology makes it really easy to set the right permissions for the right roles.

You can restrict different people’s access to data, and define which data they can have access to.

All of this makes moving your business to the cloud the best option for protecting your sensitive business data.

4. Scaling Your Business Is Easy with Cloud Tech

When you’re a business owner, you can’t help but to think about scaling your business.

Now, when you’ve got legacy systems and on-premises solutions, they can become a hindrance (instead of tools fueling your success).

Fortunately, that’s not the case when you move your business to the cloud.

Cloud solutions are incredibly flexible. You can scale easily.

If you want to start off with a plan for one user and then upgrade to an advanced plan as you hire more people and scale your business, you absolutely can.

Additionally, cloud tech is going to give you a much better understanding of your business through business intelligence:

• 44% of small business owners who use data analytics tools reported increased sales
• Businesses that use business intelligence solutions are 5x more likely to make quick and right business decisions

After all, your cloud solution will aggregate and analyze data for you. So when it’s time to make a decision, you’ll have all the information you need.

Previously, business intelligence and data analytics weren’t as affordable. Small business owners couldn’t pay thousands of dollars to understand their own data.

However, contemporary cloud solutions make it really easy to store and analyze data.

Finally, when you start using an external technological infrastructure, you’ll have a lot more time and money to focus on your customers. And if you’re keeping tabs on them too, you’ll know just how to delight them.

Staying Compliant

A lot of businesses that have to be compliant with regulations such as HIPAA worry about moving to the cloud.

While the primary concern is security (not a problem with contemporary cloud solutions), the second main issue is adaptability.

Are the cloud providers ready to keep you compliant?

Yes.

Cloud hosting has come so far in the past few years that it’s completely normal for a small business to stay compliant with regulations while utilizing cloud solutions.

In fact, some providers will even go as far as to customize their solutions so you stay compliant.

5. Systems Failure? Not a Problem

Finally, it’s time to think about all those situations in which you risk losing your data.

Sometimes even power outages can wreak havoc with typical on-premises systems.

If electricity goes out in one station, you risk losing all of the data that was supposed to be stored.

Not to mention the numerous malfunctions and messed up information.

It takes days and weeks to repair the damage – time in which you can’t focus on running your business properly.

Fortunately, system failures and other issues are not a problem if you move your business to the cloud.

Because everything is stored in one central database with multiple backups, disaster recovery is as easy as normal operation.

Not to mention natural disasters, fires, floods, or other situations in which your computers and data centers could be irreparably damaged.

Chances are, you’re not going to encounter such a dark scenario, but it’s good to know that you can get to your data whenever you need it.

Similarly, if one team member’s devices go haywire, they can simply use whichever other device they have at their disposal.

There are no data security risks; everything is kept under lock and key in the cloud.

When your data is in the cloud, you can always access it.

Your computers may be broken, your windows may be smashed in, but your data is right where you want it to be: at your fingertips.

Should You Move Your Business to the Cloud?

Previously, the main obstacle to moving your business to the cloud was the price. Cloud solutions used to be incredibly expensive.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case.

Today, you can get a smart cloud solution even if your budget is less than $100.

With it, you could get project management features, unparalleled data security, and a streamlined tool for running your business.

And the best part is: your data will always be there when you need it.