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Approaching The Cloud and SaaS For Growth

All business owners have one thing in common – the desire to see their respective businesses grow by leaps and bounds. Luckily, we’re living in an exciting digital era when advanced technology is revolutionizing how we do business.

Business owners who leverage advanced technology are not only able to minimize their operational costs, but they are also able to meet their customers’ expectations. If you’re a business owner and you’d like to stay a couple of steps ahead of your competition, you should invest in advanced technology sooner rather than later. 

SaaS software is the future. If you want to grow and scale your business, there’s no other way to go but to automate. One business process that you can trust AI with is your contract management. With GatekeeperHQ, your contract governance will eliminate all unnecessary steps and optimize your process for maximum profit.

Sadly, advanced technology doesn’t come cheap. Not only is the initial cost of adoption high, but the cost of operating and maintaining the new infrastructure is also high. This puts many small companies with restricting budgets at a disadvantage.

However, this doesn’t mean that those who can’t afford to purchase such technologies and operate them in-house are doomed. Switching to the cloud can enable them to enjoy all the benefits of advanced technology while avoiding the hefty costs and hassles involved in implementing such technologies.

Benefits of Switching to the Cloud

Small companies are switching to the cloud due to the many benefits that it provides. These benefits include:

1. It Minimizes Costs

Setting up the servers, data storage equipment, hardware software, and other local machines and technologies can cost a business a pretty penny. Startups and small businesses may find the high initial and operational costs too much of a financial burden to bear.

Cloud computing provides small companies with a cost-effective way to access IT infrastructure, maintenance equipment, and support on-demand. By switching to the cloud, you will have all the tools that you need whenever you need them. Cloud computing, therefore, helps to:

• Eliminate the initial costs of buying new local machines and technologies.
• Minimize maintenance costs as the cloud provider will be responsible for that.
• Minimize operational costs as you don’t need to hire nor train your IT staff.
• Minimize storage and backup costs as you’ll migrate those processes to the cloud.

1. It Promotes your Business’s Agility and Responsiveness

Market trends, customer preferences, and government regulations are constantly changing. Your business needs to keep pace with these constant changes for it to survive and thrive. With so many moving pieces and a lot of things to think about, it can be difficult for business owners and managers to track all the changes that occur within their operational environment. This is where cloud computing comes in handy.

It’s part of the cloud providers’ job description to watch out for changes that occur in their clients’ operational environment. Whatever new problems you may face, new demands you may need to meet, or new regulations you may want to comply with, your cloud provider will have a solution ready. By utilizing cloud services, your business will be able to maintain agile and flexible operations.

1. It Simplifies Business Operations

Maintaining transparency in all business operations is important for any business. The best way to streamline your business operations is by switching to the cloud. Cloud computing allows for easy sharing of important metrics, such as sales, equipment performance, and customer trends, etc. Your management team can utilize such data-driven insights to launch a solid OKR (objectives and key results) framework.

Cloud Adoption Challenges to Prepare For

While there are many benefits of cloud computing to look forward to, there are also several challenges that you might encounter when switching to the cloud. The following are the three challenges to expect:

1. Market challenges

In today’s economy, it’s easy for the market to experience rapid changes. Unfortunately, many businesses are unable to respond to market changes in time. Failure to respond to such changes in good time can prevent such businesses from utilizing the cloud fully.

To overcome this challenge, you should utilize cloud resources that will allow you to stay abreast of the market trends. Such resources include CRM, ERP, and business intelligence.

1. Infrastructure challenges

Can the tools, channels, and the infrastructure that you’re currently using be implemented via the cloud? If your answer is no, then you can expect some infrastructure challenges along the way. Before switching to the cloud, you need to forego your current infrastructure and invest in scalable solutions instead.

1. Business model challenges

There are also some financial and business model changes that are bound to occur when switching to the cloud. For instance, the management team will have to integrate systems that can enable them to make data-driven insights. Also, you will need to integrate ERP systems that can enable real-time collaboration between stakeholders.

How To Switch To The Cloud Safely and Efficiently

Although challenges are bound to occur during your migration to the cloud, there are certain strategies that you can implement to ensure a safe and efficient cloud migration. They include:

• Conduct a cost-benefit analysis: Before migrating to the cloud, it’s important to determine the financial viability of the move. Find out whether you’ll be allowed to pay only for what you need now and whether you’ll be able to access more services on-demand.
• Ensure that your data compatible with the cloud: You don’t want to wait until you migrate to the cloud to realize that your data isn’t compatible with the cloud. What you need to do is to get rid of unnecessary data, organize the remaining data, and ensure that all your information is compatible with the cloud.
• Have a disaster recovery plan in place: Not all cloud migrations go according to plan. So, it’s crucial to prepare a disaster recovery plan to ensure that you won’t lose any company data should a mishap occur.

Do you want to learn more about the rise of the cloud and its implications for risk and compliance? Professionals at Reciprocity will answer all the questions you may have and help you get through the cloud migration process.