Cloud storage, although originally deemed to be more suited for personal use than for business is now following the direction taken by many personal technologies and being adapted for business. It gives you access to your uploaded business files from any location, giving you the flexibility needed to get that job done fast and efficiently.
Choosing the correct cloud solution for your organisation’s needs, will allow you the capability of uploading documents from any location and device but you will also experience several other business savings.
So how does it work and can your business benefit from having cloud storage solutions?
Table of Contents
Cloud Storage Major Benefits
1. Unlimited Storage Space
With the cloud, there is virtually no limit to what you can store. The cloud doesn’t fill up like disk space as many cloud solution providers offers quality storage services at cost-effective price points. This where you can store more data and information in the form of audios, image and video files.
Documents stored in the cloud effectively does away with the need for every employee to hold and save in their PC personal copies of every document. You will be saving lots of disk space for other purposes, and all your users and partners will always be assured of having the current document version.
2. Reliability & Flexibility
Too many factors could negatively affect your data. If such data has only been stored in your business main office, a temporary and brief power failure could prove to be disastrous. Internet connectivity hitches or a natural disaster can strike without notice. In such a scenario, you are not just talking about extended and wasteful downtime but even the data that drives your business can be easily be erased for good, known to bring down lots of small businesses.
The consistency assured by the availability of cloud storage also helps in removing distractions. If the office experiences a disruption, you can easily switch to another location or simply log back in once the matter has been resolved. Often, your data is stored in several secure places, at times located far from each other. This will mean that a power failure in a single location will not affect the availability of your data elsewhere.
For businesses that experience fluctuating or growing bandwidth demands, cloud services are ideal. Whenever needs increase, scaling up your business cloud capacity is easy as you can draw on the many available remote servers. Similarly, if you want to scale down, this kind of flexibility is usually factored into the package provided. This technology allows you to be agile and giving your business an advantage over your competitors.
3. Mobility Opportunities
Before the introduction of cloud storage, it was very problematic to work outside your office and even more time consuming. Today, even the smallest of businesses can operate efficiently on an international scale. Remote teams and workers can access resources and data via the cloud from any location where work takes them.
With cloud computing, so long as an internet connection is available, work continues. Most cloud service providers facilitate work by offering suitable mobile apps so that workers are not restricted by the type of device that they have. Access privileges to the Cloud-based store can be set by your administrators for different levels of users as well.
4. Document Control
The more business partners and employees collaborate on different documents, the greater will be the need for maintaining watertight control over documents. Prior to the advent of cloud, files had to be sent back and forth between workers as email attachments. Sooner or later you are likely to end up having a huge accumulation of conflicting file formats, titles and content.
With a shift to cloud solutions, all documents that your business files get centrally stored and every employee sees only a single version of the document. This leads to enhanced collaboration, ultimately leading to better work outcomes, and of course a healthier business bottom line. If your organisation is still doing things in the traditional way, perhaps the time to try cloud solutions is now.
5. Security
Laptops getting lost are a daily nightmare for any individual and all businesses. Even potentially greater compared to losing an expensive gadget, is losing sensitive and valuable data inside that machine. Storing on the Cloud gives you security in case something like that happens. As all your data has been stored securely in the cloud, you will easily download it even after losing your laptop or after a PC failure. In case the wrong hands get your laptop, you can even get all the data wiped off remotely so that it’s not misused.
Most cloud storage packages usually include backup systems as well. Whenever your data is stored in the cloud, the service providers back it up in several sites, all synced such that any changes get simultaneously recorded at each of the backup sites. You will not need to back all your data manually, something that is very time consuming.
Malware and anti-virus updates are set for automatic running, saving you the trouble of addressing these or having to deal with the costly consequences in case you forget to run or update.
6. Scalable Service
When using cloud services from a reputable provider, you will only pay for the particular services you use. These can range from online backup, online server backup, Cloud Storage to hosted exchange.
It will not even be necessary for your business to anticipate your yearly storage space needs so that you are potentially putting yourself at risk paying for more than you will actually use or even running short. Based on emerging needs, you can adjust your package with the Hosting.co.uk providers and only pay based on actual usage.
For more on cloud services, read this post.
Conclusion
With the adoption of cloud storage, your business can easily re-allocate time and manpower away from managing storage and backup systems. Your staff can focus on core activities and strategy implementation. Your resources can now be directed to what matters, boosting the bottom line. Also, because your team will be having more peace of mind, they can give more and boost productivity helping your business to deliver on its core mandate.
Whether you are running a small or big business, cloud storage solutions offer many benefits. It is reliable, secure and enables your employees to remain connected wherever they are working across the world. That is not even counting the other endless cloud solutions and benefits from private providers such as Hosting.co.uk.
The workload, time and cost savings enable your workers to stay focused on core business activities. It comes as no surprise that many businesses are adopting cloud storage solutions that were at some point the preserve of individuals who wanted to save family photos!
