According to one recent survey, some 90% of British organisations are now using cloud solutions, with over half of them using at least two providers. It’s not a massive overstatement to say that cloud server hosting has revolutionised the way businesses operate, boosting profitability alongside numerous other benefits. If your business doesn’t currently invest in a cloud hosting solution, here’s why you should consider it.

Scalability

If your business tends to experience rapid periods of growth, then it can be problematic to continually need to upgrade infrastructure. When you use cloud technologies you can expand or reduce capabilities such as bandwidth and server storage as and when required. What’s more, adjustments that might take your own IT department several days or even weeks to organise can often be sorted out by your provider within a matter of hours. It enables business growth, and helps you manage if you need to downsize as well.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

With the cloud you can access whole suites of programs, with everything your business needs to function, from financial software to marketing tools to CMS’. That means you no longer need to bother installing reams of software onto individual devices, or updating it, since that’s done automatically, so you are always working on the latest versions. QuickBooks Cloud Hosting can be an perfect example of Software-as-a-Service. Managing user licenses becomes a lot easier too. Software as a service leads to…

Cost Savings

Now you are only purchasing the services that you actually need at any given time, so you’re not going to be wasting as much money on expensive software that is only used a few times and then just sits there redundantly. Your capital expenditure is being significantly reduced and your finance department will be happy, also because…

Predictable Expenditure

You will have a steady monthly subscription to budget for, making the your IT expenditure more predictable and manageable, and the job of finance easier.

Support

You will have experts immediately at hand from your cloud provider, so that any issues with software are resolved promptly and effectively. It removes the need to have that expertise within your own organisation, freeing your IT department up to focus on other projects. Complex type of tasks such as to migrate data or to migrate godaddy email to office 365 can be made more easier with proper technical support from your CSP.

Greening-up

Corporate environmental responsibility is a big thing, and the cloud can help you to deliver on expectations. How? Running a server consumes a lot of power, but now you’re only using the capacity that you actually need. No half-empty servers in your office wasting your money and the earth’s resources.

Compliance

Sensitive data needs to be adequately protected to comply with laws and regulations, which can be complex. If your data is held in cloud servers, they meet those obligations for you – one less thing for you to worry about.

Competitiveness

The cloud appeals to businesses of all sizes, from SMEs to global multinationals. Small businesses can operate on a more even playing-field with the big players in their marketplace, because now they have access to enhanced technology that they might not have been able to afford before cloud computing came along.

Security

Because cloud providers live or die on the reliability of the services they provide to hundreds (if not thousands) of clients, proactive security is their watchword. You can have confidence that your data is more secure than if it were held on your own servers. It also means that the problem of staff losing kit such as laptops is reduced, as anyone finding it would still need a password to access your company data on the cloud. Plus, you can entrust regular data backups to your provider which will complement your own.

Remote working

Flexibility is far greater with the cloud, so if you have staff out in the field, they can connect to the information and platforms they need from devices wherever they are. It makes project collaboration with teams in different countries or timezones far easier to manage. A side-benefit of that is you can introduce hot-desking, leaving you with lower office costs, and possibly happier staff.