Cloud storage, whether it is in the public or private space, is a major jump for a lot of people who are apprehensive about new technology. Online storage and file sharing is an exciting concept, but the security and reliability are still question marks for many managers. There is also the concern of what is cloud technology offering their business that they can’t achieve with a strong on-base storage facilities and a skilled IT guy.
The real question, however, is not so much about the benefits you might get, but about the disadvantages you suffer by passing on cloud storage. The first movers have already established their business processes with online file storage and have achieved real operational benefits from cloud service solutions. The benchmarks have been set by companies looking to reduce variable costs and improve their output, and managers left behind will soon see their customers disappearing into the cloud too.
Benefits of cloud storage services
Cloud storage offers a range of business solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises. The key areas that have received the most benefit from cloud services have been in recruiting, marketing, sales force automation, expenses management.
Finding talent has been made simpler by the best online file storage platforms with the saving, sharing and communication of new hires information, CVs, phone and video interviews around the company, thus making it easier for more people in the organization to see who is applying without wasting time.
Secondly, marketing is one of the most competitive areas of your business and cloud technologies give companies access to more customers and more information about their target markets. The low costs associated with cloud services ensure that marketing efforts get an improved ROI with faster results.
The early adopters of cloud solutions have been able to improve the core elements of their business operations. With faster billing and accounting that is easier to track, simple management of supply chain and distribution networks, as well as compliance with business processes can all be managed without the need for bulky and expensive in-house servers and storage hardware.
Reports from managers surveyed about their cloud use found that increased revenue, higher profits and reduced costs were all drawn from their adoption of cloud services – and cloud storage has sprung up to compete for the expanding market of managers looking to gain a real advantage. As more firms develop new cloud systems, the functionality becomes increasingly sophisticated, and the prices are dropping and will continue to reduce over the next few years.
What stands in the way between managers and the cloud?
With so many stories about start-ups and SME’s achieving rampaging growth figures, surely every manager would be looking to take advantage of fast, innovative and agile cloud services when the cheapest cloud storage offers real quantifiable results? This is where we have to acknowledge the real barriers that some firms have to moving their processes online and into the cloud.
Even though the cloud is designed to ramp up your operational efficiencies, for some pragmatic buyers the costs may look as if they swallow up what savings the cloud may achieve for you. Even with the best online storage systems, the time required to set up a system, move old files to online storage and educate everyone in the company about establishing best practices, it seems like the nonmonetary costs may not be justified by the benefits. This is, after all, a foreign and unknown system, where the IT guy has to relinquish control of systems they developed themselves from the old hardware. Plus, fears of security and reliability are turning some late adopters away from the cloud systems, to their detriment.
Adopting the cloud is no longer an advantage, it’s the standard
Harvard Business Review surveyed 452 organizations in North America, Asia/Pacific, Europe and Latin America about how cloud services have affected their business operations. 40% of those organizations attributed an increase in revenue to cloud computing and 36% felt their improved profit margins were due to moving their resources onto the cloud.
Adopting is no longer an advantage, it’s the standard. Those who miss out suffer the consequences of slower processes and higher operating costs.
Something that is worth mentioning here is the innovation adoption curve: as an idea grows throughout the market, different groups get different benefits from the new trend, service or product. Innovators and early adopters make up about 16% of the traditional technology adoption curve. These are the people and companies who are getting the real benefits from moving to the cloud. They are also setting the standard and taking advantage of lower operational costs, greater efficiencies and more insights into their activities from analytical data.
The implications of this are pretty serious for managers. If your organization is still operating with on-site storage, then you are costing your company money as the 16% adoption benchmark has been passed now. This destroys the value your firm is creating and ultimately this has to either be passed onto customers or taken from the company’s bottom line. At the same time, your competitors are leaner, meaner and faster due to their adoption of cloud solutions.
So how can you evaluate the cloud providers out there?
For many managers and C-level executives determining what tools will work for their company can be quite difficult. Do you choose the service for what your current objectives are, the strategy of your business unit, or the goals of head office? Each of these is a valid metric to choose from, and so are improving customer journeys and UX, enhanced data analysis capabilities, processing capacity, reliability, etc. A the end of the day, it all comes down to which cloud services provider can offer benefits which outweigh the costs of the service.
Another factor that is particularly important is data security. It’s essential that you go with a provider with a proven performance with creating high-grade encryption and security measures, such as us and pCloud Crypto.
Let’s take a more detailed look into that.
Competitive advantage
Failing to move to the cloud is ultimately going to be a serious opportunity cost for your firm. Business agility is named as the biggest change seen by managers once they migrate their file storage and systems to the cloud. Whether a firm operates in the B2B, B2C or even B2G spaces, having faster work processes and better analytical information ensures that the company has a greater understanding of how processes are achieved and with what level of proficiency.
Security
Security, it would seem, is one of the biggest concerns not just for businesses but for individuals as well. With security breaches on the verge, a simple password is just not enough to protect the safety of a company’s files, processes, and other data.
Firewalls can be compromised, and malware and crypto-viruses find their way on local company servers. This is why we came up with pCloud Crypto and made sure to offer an additional layer of security paired up with sophisticated client-side encryption. Even without Crypto, we use TLS/SSL encryption for transfer of data to and from our servers, and at least three server locations for even higher reliability and improved service continuity.
Fast followers are the real winners
The real winners in the competitive market are not the innovators, nor the pragmatic late adopters. The company’s that ultimate achieve sustainable success long term are the fast followers. Organizations that want to achieve a differential advantage must possess one key quality: the ability to make fast assessments of the technologies available, work out what the solutions that can help them and then make the move.
With services like pCloud offering the best free cloud storage alongside more sophisticated premium services, managers can choose systems that will give their firm the cost savings required to catch up to the innovators and deliver more value to the market than ever before.
Ultimately, moving your business activities to the cloud is already past the tipping point. In order for companies to remain competitive, the requirement to move online is now an imperative. Your key competitors have likely moved their systems online and are already reaping the benefits. In order to maintain parity and ensure your company does not go the way of monoliths that failed to realize that the market was changing faster than they were.
Are you looking for a cloud solution for your business? Get in touch with us today.