Here are the 8 signs that indicate your business is ready to move to the cloud soon.
Cloud computing is more popular than ever, with more companies across various industries migrating from on-premises to the cloud. This trend is expected to continue, with Gartner predicting that global end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 20.7% to a total of $591.8 B in 2023, an increase from $490.3 B in 2022. Firms of all sizes are reaping benefits of the cloud and the range of cloud-dependent solutions on the market. If your business still needs to take advantage of this technology, now could be the time to move to the cloud. Here are the eight signs you and your business are ready to take the leap to cloud services:
8 Signs Indicating Your Business Should Move to the Cloud Soon
🔎 There is a Need for Additional Storage Capacity
If you are almost out of storage on your existing server, it is the right time to consider investing in cloud storage. Though you can always upgrade your current servers or add new ones, the cloud is a more cost-effective alternative. Public cloud providers offer excellent storage capacity, which is scalable, unlimited, and flexible. In addition, you only need to pay for what you need.
🔎 Support Required for Employees to Work Remotely
Remote working is here to stay. The ability to work from anywhere for workers is an essential operational consideration for hiring. However, companies employing a typical IT environment can find it immensely challenging to support their remote workers. Implementation of remote connectivity ineffectively can cause serious security vulnerabilities and less productivity. If you're using a cloud-based solution, it enables your team to combine office and remote work seamlessly. When data is stored in the cloud, employees can access their files and software irrespective of their geographic location, which as a result, preserves productivity with no compromise on security. Meanwhile, a cloud-based system keeps the business's data and processes safe from remote locations and personal devices.
🔎 Your IT Staff Spends a Lot of Time on Updates and System Maintenance
If your IT department spends too long simply installing upgrades and maintaining your on-premises systems, it might be time to say goodbye to this practice. One of the significant advantages of using a cloud-based system is that the cloud provider handles maintenance, and upgrades are automatic or extremely painless. This takes the pressure off your IT workforce and allows them to focus on more revenue-generating projects.
🔎 Security and Compliance Have Become Key Concerns
It is common for businesses and consumers to be concerned about cybersecurity threats. As technology advances and becomes more sophisticated, so do cyber threats. Maintaining high levels of security and preventing unauthorized access to sensitive information has become highly challenging with the expansion of the mobile workforce. While it might seem counterintuitive, cloud-based solutions are more secure than on-premises solutions. This is because you share the responsibility of data security with your cloud provider and can deliver enterprise-grade security and compliance. Features such as conditional data access, sensitivity labels, and multi-factor authentication mean that you can guarantee your data is secure with a cloud solution, and your vendor is equipped with a specialized workforce who work to maintain the integrity of your system and give routine backups of your data.
🔎 Your Company Has a Limited or Tight Budget
If you are incurring unexpected costs to maintain your servers or have any other budget constraints, now is the time to deploy the cloud services. Cloud services enable companies to increase their IT budget in a number of ways. Capital expenditures can at once be decreased by temporarily hiring resources from a cloud provider rather than buying equipment for an on-premises data center. The scalability and flexibility of cloud computing enable companies to only pay for the resources they use. You pay a pre-determined subscription fee and keep your costs foreseeable and manageable as your business expands when you move to the cloud. Additionally, cloud computing ensures needless and costly resources are not sitting idle and costing money that could be better spent somewhere else.
🔎 There is a Lack of a Disaster Recovery Plan
If you lack a disaster recovery plan or your ability to recover from a disaster could be better, then cloud-based solutions can help. Many small businesses often have no disaster recovery plan in place, or if they have them, their plans are not tested enough due to the lack of internal resources. Cloud computing is extremely useful in this scenario for its remote nature, especially for small to mid-size businesses lacking the necessary expertise to provide, configure, and test an effective disaster recovery plan, as most modern cloud-based systems offer a robust backup and recovery plan.
🔎 You Haven't Purchased a Server in Over the Last Three Years
If you last bought a server more than three years ago, the server may have started to wear out or run out of space. This is typically the timeframe when you would replace your servers - which is a considerable capital expense. The cloud is quite a responsive operating expense – you only pay for what and when you use it. All software and infrastructure expenses scale directly with your business activities every month.
🔎 You Have Future Plans for Business Expansion
Beyond doubt, businesses need various kinds of IT resources to support development and progress. In a traditional environment, measuring the scale of growth to provision on-premises computing and storage capacity can be challenging. The likelihood is to over-provision to steer clear of shortages at the cost of a higher financial commitment. With the deployment of the cloud, this problem can be eliminated by enabling a business to obtain the resources they require now with the flexibility to alter those requirements if need be. Continual advancement can be addressed by enhancing the cloud footprint while resources can be pruned and costs decreased if the additional capacity is unneeded.
Let us help with your cloud transformation
If your company is evaluating a migration to the cloud, considering your first cloud-based ERP or CRM solution, or looking to move from on-premises, get in touch with Kwixand Solutions to see how we can help you. We are a Silver Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner and ERP implementation partner based in Vancouver, Canada, and we help businesses across Canada and the US digitally transform and achieve their goals. Book a free consultation with us today to get started.