Cloud Computing and the Progressive SMB

While many enterprises are moving rapidly to the cloud, some SMBs are still entrenched in traditional IT infrastructure. SMBs have invested such a sizable chunk in their enterprise IT that they are, perhaps understandably, unwilling to spend more. And unlike bigger organizations, they don’t have the mental bandwidth and manpower involved in migrating and possible rewriting of some of their services. However, cloud computing is still likely the best way to go for SMBs in the long term, according to a recent Cisco survey.

The biggest takeaway from Cisco’s research is that if small and midsize businessess are to become more progressive, they will need to move to the cloud.

Other checkpoints for progressive SMBs, according to an article on CloudComputingNews.net, are utilizing the mobile workforce, collaborating in person and embracing social media.

Cloud computing, however, is increasingly seen as a viable option for small and medium enterprises, even if they don’t realize it.

Here are just a few reasons why progressive SMBs will benefit from the cloud.

The cloud gives you more freedom in your hardware purchases – in traditional IT, you are often required to use a certain hardware configuration for the applications to work. This reduces your freedom and increases your purchasing costs. However, cloud computing allows your services to work with a greater variety of devices and helps you shop in a wider range.

The cloud helps you acquire a stronger IT team – for a small business, hiring a security, performance or scalability expert can be overkill. However, with cloud computing, you can employ remote resources to help you manage your security or performance requirements without having to have a dedicated, full-time member within your IT team.

The cloud can help cut IT costs – the fundamental premise of public cloud computing lies in economy of scale. Instead of having the server tucked in your office, managed by a dedicated team, the vendors can provide services to thousands of businesses leveraging common resources.

The cloud can help you to be more efficient – in many SMBs, the enterprise IT requirement outgrows IT infrastructure quickly. It is not always easy to forecast and plan the growth of the business, unlike the large enterprises. This means you are forced to estimate the appropriate size of your infrastructure, and most often you either end up under-using the systems or run out of space.

Despite these points, a recent survey from cloud software provider MYOB revealed that nearly four in five companies surveyed (79%) didn’t use the cloud for business, despite evidence that it would be good for their business – 44% of SMEs surveyed in the cloud expected their revenue to rise in the next 12 months, as opposed to 22% of those not in the cloud.

Patrick Burke is a writer and editor based in the greater New York area and occasionally blogs for Rackspace Hosting.