Photo Credit: Dave Dugdale
The single most predominant force controlling the economic world today is information. Data has the power to bring business success or failure, depending on how it is managed. The average corporation pours the same amount of funds into IT as they do into hardware. The world has become flooded with digital data, and today’s entrepreneurs struggle to compete without a workable understanding of IT strategies. In response to an overwhelming need for simplicity, the IT industry has honed the field down into more palatable chunks, allowing executives with little digital knowledge to make core decisions without losing themselves in technical jargon. Data management products have been transformed to suit the masses who were educated in a world that was not overwhelmed by electronic information. Cloud data storage has cleared room for simpler solutions that are scalable, affordable and easily adopted.
1) How agile is your business?
Start ups and rapidly changing businesses need highly adaptive storage solutions that do not need to be enhanced at every expansion point. Here, the shrink-to-fit infrastructure of cloud technology gives you a flexible IT provision. Cloud storage comes with its own structure, so no installation and complex hardware management is needed. Your storage will expand automatically to suit your changing needs.
2) How much investment capital is available?
When paving the way for a brand new enterprise, funds are scarce, particularly during the first five years of business. Cloud systems come with a streamlined pay as you go model that omits any need for initial investment. The need for support is negligible and access to storage space is almost instant. When profits soar, corporate needs tend to inflate, bringing with them more complex technological demands. Cloud storage can be tailored towards a business’ ballooning complexity, so that investments and returns remain balanced across a lengthy timeline.
3) Are you a large business with desktop based software needs?
Storage solutions that come with on site hardware are bulky, complex to install and financially demanding. Large or rapidly expanding companies which work primarily with desktop computing need a data backup process that is fool proof for employees and managers to integrate and use. Software compatibility is of prime concern for businesses with comprehensive intranets and internet. Reputable cloud based service providers will competently handle data recovery and automatic data backups, taking the weight of these functions off employee shoulders. Software is instantly integrated, erasing the hefty time and cash investments that come with other storage options. With cloud storage, corporations should not need to tailor their existing software to their storage systems, and related staff training is erased.
4) Are you a digital start up?
In recent years, cloud technology has begun to carve a new spot for itself in cyberspace for corporations with increasingly complex storage needs. Bells and whistles such as email, hyped up security and Voip offer tools that benefit entirely new sectors, but cloud’s initial advantages remain its most valuable. For digital start ups, cloud technology comes with high speed access from remote cloud servers across the world through internet gateways. Social media support, multiple storage accounts and streaming capacity are all valuable assets for companies that compete in virtual industries.
In a world without cloud storage, solutions would need to contract and stretch to corporate needs along business life cycles. Adapting to size would be costly at every phase and installation procedures would erase days of productivity from corporate time. Today’s cloud based infrastructures do not shrink to fit every business, but they have created fresh opportunities for a core segment requiring adaptive technology that lacks bulk and complication.
Tom is a business consultant who advises small to medium sized businesses on how to get the most out of their IT infrastructure.
