With the holiday season fast approaching, we wanted to take some time to discuss the many ways that you DON’T need to be at the office to get work done. This is possible with the myriad of options made available to small businesses today. Some of the technologies that help accomplish this are the cloud, voice over IP (VOIP), and virtual private networks (VPN).
The Cloud
What is it?
You probably hear this word get thrown around everywhere when talking about IT and it is for good reason; it has become a critical component to many IT strategies for small businesses over the last few years. The cloud is just an easy way of saying services hosted through the Internet, thus eliminating the need for on-premises equipment. For you, that means no more trying to scrounge up thousands of dollars for a new piece of equipment or that latest piece of software. With the cloud, the service provider bares all the burden when it comes to hardware costs. The SMB gets all the benefits of top of the line equipment, regular updates, and previously unattainable reliability at a reasonable monthly cost.
What are examples of when small businesses would most commonly use it?
- Email services: the cloud has made enterprise level email services available at a price that small businesses can afford
- Data storage: some small business teams can get rid of the server all together and move all their data to the cloud for available access anytime, anywhere as long as they have Internet
- Data backup: The cloud allows data to be automatically backed up so that it can be recovered in a time of need from any location. For example, if a fire were to burn down your office space.
- Expensive software: Sometimes small businesses require software that is quite expensive to buy upfront; in these scenarios, a lot of times there will be a cloud option available which allows the SMB to pay small monthly fees to get the software, upgrades, and technical support.
The fact that SMBs can now have the technology to empower them to be successful at predictable monthly rates and value-added services (technical support, automatic upgrades, and more) means that there is one less thing for SMB owners to worry about. After all, as an owner, you have your own business to run; IT shouldn’t disrupt that. If executed correctly, IT can become an asset to helping your business succeed.
In part 2, we will discuss how VoIP and VPNs can also aid SMBs in being more flexible with their operations.
Contact us today to find out how cloud services can benefit your business!!!