3 SMB benefits of taking to the cloud

With the holiday season in full swing and air traffic at its peak, we ask is the sky the limit for SMBs that take to the cloud?~Here are~three ways in which research is showing us that cloud computing can and is transforming the lives of SMBs.

#1 Security and privacy

With the recent news that just one hacking ring stole US $300 million from US companies, and with 800,000 laptops going astray in airports~ each year,~computers and servers are vulnerable pieces of kit.~With a growing number of employees working remotely, making sure your bounty of business data isn’t pillaged by physical or cyber criminals can be easier and safer when businesses go to the ‘cloud’. A recent study by~ComScore on behalf of Microsoft found that 94% of companies that have adopted cloud services believe they possess a level of security such as spam protection and virus monitoring they didn’t previously have on site. An additional 61% said the frequency and length of downtimes decreased with their move to the cloud – an important factor when you consider the costs involved in recovery.

#2 Environmental benefits

With Earth Day a recent memory and the festival season rocking to a different beat, the subject of living a greener, more carefree and sustainable existence is close to our hearts. It’s also an area where cloud computing~scores seriously green points. To give an indication of how much energy can be saved from businesses moving to the cloud, a six-month study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Northwestern University with funding from Google found that moving common software applications used by 86 million US workers to the cloud could save enough electricity annually to power Los Angeles for a year. For the SMB these benefits translate into cost savings. Rackspace in conjunction with the Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne, found that in a survey of 1,300 UK and US companies 88% of cloud users~achieved cost savings, with 56% of respondents saying that cloud services helped boost profits.~Dynamic provisioning, multi-tenancy, server utilization and data centre efficiency are just some of the ways in which cloud computing can help.

#3 Cost savings

Calculating the cost of moving to the cloud is an important factor in deciding whether to shift to the cloud and in getting C-level staff and other decision makers onboard. Rather than buy technology and product licences outright, cloud users can simply rent them and pay for IT services on a scalable subscription basis. In a study by IT market research company Vanson-Bourne, 62% of respondents stated that cloud computing is enabling their organizations to invest more money back into their businesses. However, this doesn’t take into account the money generated from business facilitated by cloud computing. In the same survey, more than seven~in 10 (72%) organisations believe that cloud computing is a key factor in the recent boom of entrepreneurs and start-ups in the UK and the USA. This is due in part to the ability for smaller companies to subscribe to services rather than develop an IT infrastructure that would previously have been beyond their means.

Let us know how cloud computing has benefited you.