How Cloud Based Softwares Can Help Your Business

Featured article by Robert Cordray, Independent Technology Author

The cloud isn’t just a buzzword. It is a revolution in internet technology that has changed how businesses manage data and use software.

Adoption of the cloud by companies has soared in recent years. 93 percent of companies now use cloud computing within their organizations. There are a lot of ways a business can benefit from the cloud. Below are just a few.

1. Secure Backup

Data loss is a big risk for many companies these days. Losing all your data can interrupt your business for days or even weeks. Even worse, many companies now leverage “big data” into one of their competitive advantages. Losing it all can be a serious setback. 75 percent of companies fail to recover their lost data.

One way to mitigate this risk is by having routine backups performed within the cloud. Unlike local storage on your own hardware, cloud storage will not be affected by anything that goes wrong at your facilities. If you are hit by a tornado, flood, fire or even simply a bad thunderstorm, your data will remain secure in the cloud.

2. Cost Savings

One reason why so many companies have jumped on the cloud bandwagon is that it can help a business eliminate much of the expense of dealing with data and software. Purchasing servers is quite expensive. Even more expensive is having the IT staff on hand to manage those servers.

With cloud computing, though, the server space is managed by the company contracted to offer cloud hosting. The same can be said for cloud based software. All problems with the software will be addressed on the vendor’s end. Thus there is less need for expensive IT professionals to be on the payroll.

3. Convenience

Cloud computing also gives companies the opportunities to access and implement business software without some of the hassles that software usually entails. For one, nothing has to be installed. The software is loaded directly through the cloud. The only installation that needs to be done for such software packages occurs on the vendor’s end. The vendor will deal with all bugs and issues through their own tech support personnel.

Pretty much every kind of business software you can imagine is now available through the cloud. This includes simple word processor and spreadsheet applications and much more complex BPM software. BPM stands for business process management. This is software used for modeling, managing and automating business processes.

4. Scalability

One big drawback of traditional web hosting is the lack of flexibility. If a company’s website suddenly receives an influx of visitors one day, the amount of bandwidth contracted for with the hosting company will probably be exceeded. When that occurs, your website can go down for hours. You can lose a lot of money as a result. Paying for more bandwidth or storage space with such a hosting plan can be very expensive and force your budget for hosting to go into the red. Most traditional hosting company contracts work on a yearly or monthly basis and can be hard to get out of.

However, cloud hosting is scalable. What this means is that cloud services can actually increase the capacity of traffic you are allotted for your account automatically. If you have very high traffic on a particular day one month, your website won’t go down. Instead, the cloud hosting company will allot more resources to your website automatically. Similarly, you can allow your website and user base to expand without having to renegotiate into a much more expensive contract. This is great for companies with plans for aggressive expansion.

Most companies now implement the cloud and with good reason. There are many benefits in regards to efficiency, convenience, security and cost savings that can be provided by cloud computing. Take advantage of these benefits because your competitors are likely already doing so.