There is much to be said in favour of cloud computing, especially if you are a small business without the in-house skills to manage your IT systems properly. Irrespective of all of the arguments on how cloud computing saves you money, many companies who adopt cloud systems do so because they buy in to the idea that they will no longer have to worry about buying hardware, upgrading it, and making sure that their business information is properly backed up. However it is implemented, outsourcing IT is increasingly seen as an easy win for businesses.
Furthermore, in these days of flexible working, your office becomes wherever you want it to be, since you can access your company information from a café or airport lounge equally as well as you can from your own desk.
Nonetheless, if you decide that cloud computing is right for your business, you shouldn’t rush headlong into it. Change can be a painful process, and your implementation needs to be planned to make sure that you set off on the right foot and avoid push-back from your staff. Involoving your employees from day 1 is hugely important. They are after all the people who earn money for your company, and they may have genuine concerns that you will need to address prior to implementation.
Plan For Change
When you move your business applications to the cloud you may well find that it requires minor changes to working practices for your staff. You may for instance be moving to a newer version of your business software, or the cloud version may work slightly differently to the way that your staff have been used to working previously. Alternatively, if you are looking to move to a cloud CRM system, you may be making changes to streamline your business processes. In any event, your new cloud based system should be installed as a pilot in parallel to your current systems for sufficient time to allow training and acceptance testing to take place.
Security
If you are moving to the cloud, you have to consider the security of your data. Under the data Protection Act, you should not take your clients’ personal information outside the EU, so make sure that you know where your information is being stored. You also need to take into account that your data is now being stored on another company’s systems, so should you be taking additional security measures such as encrypting your information, or protecting access to your cloud systems using strong authentication?
One size certainly doesn’t fit all companies when it comes to cloud migration, but you need to make sure that you get the process right for your business. As with any IT project, planning for success will pay dividends.
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