How cloud computing provides IT solutions for businesses

The benefits of cloud computing in IT

Speed and performance

One of the most appealing features of cloud computing is that it increases the speed of IT services. For many businesses, time is money. If all of your employees have access to faster working systems, they’ll be able to complete their work much more quickly or efficiently. When you add up all of the extra work that can be completed by each employee, the overall result could be significant.

Cloud computing increases network speed, guarantees uptime for your systems and also offers automatic performance upgrades. In this digital age, performance really matters. You need something that can keep up with the speed you’re working at and which can instantly accommodate for all of your needs. The cloud provides you with that solution and many more.

Flexibility

Cloud computing is highly flexible. This makes it an excellent IT solution for businesses which frequently need to scale up or scale down their storage and software to meet real-time needs. It doesn’t matter what size your business is or which sector you work in, the cloud is accessible to everyone. Your employees will be able to access the services they need at any time, as long as they have an internet connection. This means that remote workers will have no trouble using applications and the files that they need while working from home. 

During a time when no one is certain when they’ll be back in the office, this level of flexibility is extremely useful. Once lockdown rules are lifted, we might find ourselves slowly easing ourselves back into normal life. This may mean returning to the office for one or two days a week and working remotely for the others. Cloud computing means that this won’t be an issue, because your work and applications will always be available, no matter where you are. 

Cost-efficiency 

You might be thinking that accessing cloud-based services would be expensive due to the sheer number of features they provide. However, most of these services are supplied on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that you can pick and choose what works best for you and your employees and leave out any of the parts you don’t need. This pay-as-you-go system allows the cloud to act as a storage solution for your business. The flexibility of cloud services means that if your business expands, so too can your services. It’s as simple as upgrading your subscription.

When you take into account that you’ll no longer be paying for physical servers and the costs it takes to keep these running, it becomes clear that the cloud is incredibly cost-efficient. Having a fixed monthly rate which provides you with exactly what you need means you’ll be able to forecast the rest of your budget appropriately. 

Business continuity

Having your data stored virtually means that your business will always have a backup solution supplied by the cloud. Cloud computing provides a solution by guaranteeing reliable disaster recovery as a backup should there be a worst-case scenario. While it’s rare that this might happen, it’s something you should always have a plan for. After a failure, you’ll be able to quickly restore your data and get back to business suffering either minimal or no downtime. 

Scalability

One of the biggest advantages of cloud solutions for small or medium-sized businesses is the option to scale-up. The pay-as-you-go system means you only get what you currently need, and you can always upgrade or downgrade whenever those needs change. When your business grows, you’ll be able to access the additional features and services that you now need. If your team or clients reduce in size, then you can simply drop back down to a smaller plan. Being able to scale-up and scale-down with such ease appeals to many small and medium-sized businesses who can’t always guarantee stable results.

Increased collaboration

The cloud allows your employees to communicate with more ease than ever before. Traditional methods can be expensive and time-consuming, especially if you have a large number of employees. Employees who are working remotely on the same project will need to be able to quickly talk to each other throughout the day. Cloud computing gives them a range of ways to collaborate with each other, from Teams to shared calendars and instant messaging platforms. Your team can even work on the same documents at the same time, no matter where in the world they are!

Keeping employees well connected during a time when they’re all working remotely is essential. Without regular communication or ways to quickly share progress and information, tasks could end up taking much longer than usual. There are other ways for employees to communicate, but none are faster or easier than the cloud.