How cloud computing helps small businesses

5 reasons why cloud computing helps small businesses stay competitive

Over the past 25 years, the office has stopped being the only place where it was possible to work: email replaced the post room; mobiles replaced fixed line phones; desktops replaced mainframes; laptops replaced desktops; and so on.

Cloud computing is the final part of this picture. At different companies, for example, two thirds of customers are ‘non-residential’ - they use workplace solutions on a pay-as-you-go basis, rather than coming in every day to the office.

Small businesses have noticed the change fastest - cloud computing offers 5 things that allow them to compete on equal terms with larger organizations:

1. Processing power and memory no longer matter: So long as you have the right cloud set up, you can run most business functions on a £100 tablet, with a twentieth of the processing power, and a hundredth of the memory, of a desktop.
2. Focus on the core business: Cloud computing removes the requirement for a room full of servers and an IT department, freeing entrepreneurs to focus on sales, marketing and product development - the things they do best.
3. Sophisticated technologies scale with size: Because cloud services scale instantly, people pay for what they need when they need it. Nobody has to pay for spare capacity any more.
4. Staying out of the office: Instead of having to assemble a team in a single fixed location, small businesses can collaborate virtually, and use office space only on the occasions when they need to meet clients or get together to brainstorm.
5. Outsourcing admin: Products like Office 365 can replace a huge amount of human processing power with simple, well-designed workflows that go a long way to eliminating the administrative tasks that hold back small businesses.

Rumana Anjum

Lecturer in CS Dept

Brindavan College