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Let’s set the scene. Close your eyes. Imagine.
A staunch, somewhat broad gentleman exhibiting a sunken in face, dressed in the latest season Hugo Boss navy suit and donning a pair of the most expensive Ted Baker shoes, opens the door to the office. His shoulders are drooped as if he were carrying the weight of the world on them. It’s 8:00pm. He walks down the hallway pretending to have purpose – trying his best not to let the onset exhaustion show.
He takes a seat at his comfy, typically CEO like black leather chair and looks out the window into the distance. He’s meant to be at home looking after the children while his wife attends her late night book club. But he’s had to call and cancel – the growing mountain of work on his desk stares back at him as if it has just taken a healthy dose of steroids. It just keeps getting bigger, and bigger.
Lets just cut to the chase. You’d expect this depiction to have been pulled straight out of the 80’s.
When technology was simply a far off dream.
To pretend that this scenario is still typical of today would be somewhat naive. We’ve been handed the tools and the mechanisms necessary to change this – all on a silver platter. The idea of an “intergalactic computer network” was introduced as early as the sixties. J.C.R Licklider dreamt of everyone on the globe being interconnected and accessing programs and data from any site, anywhere. An idea that sounds almost as if it were foreshadowing what we call today, “cloud computing”. (1)
Here’s why turning to the cloud will help your business:
1. The cloud builds clarity and transparency
It’s not uncommon for transparency to be a common goal for any business. Transparency and clarity in your figures holds great importance particularly with respect to head office functions. Cloud based technology has aided us in almost eliminating human error for good. Why take that chance when you’re presented with a platform for extreme accuracy?
When the end of the financial year rolls around, when the time comes that someone begins their due diligence on you, when the tax agents come knocking – by utilising cloud based software you are armed with the ability to visualise all of your important information, so you’re aware of exactly where you’re sitting. How much is it that you’re really making and where is your money is going. The cloud puts you in the best position possible with respect to financial transparency.
2. The cloud helps with disaster recovery, with flexibility, and with automation
The dreaded days of sitting at the paper shredder for hours on end. Page after page, listening to the monotonous drone resonate in your brain, as the hours tick by. Well, say sayonara to the paper shredder. Because not only does it waste time, it’s putting you in the position where being responsible for screeds of paper is simply a disaster waiting to happen. First a file goes missing, then you enter the wrong numbers, then you send a copy to the wrong office, to the wrong person and heaven knows what else.
Time and time again the cloud has proved the safest storage facility to manage your files. The likes of google docs, google sheets and so forth are becoming second nature to administrative and head office staff today. It’s quick and reliable with sleek disaster recovery, and it allows to you to turn common tedious and time consuming tasks into an automated format. So, why wouldn’t you turn to the cloud?
3. The cloud increases connectivity
Speed, scale and insight. These three words encapsulate the exact meaning of cloud computing. The cloud works at lightning speed, eliminating any notion of time and space. This makes globalising your product, your service, or your business a shiny new possibility. The concept of globalisation must always be considered even before you go into business, and you can never rule out when you’re creating your go-to market plan – that one day your business might go global. With this in mind, cloud integration makes the hiring and the exporting side of things, a walk in the park. It’s as if you’re sitting right in the central city of a country millions of miles away.
**Cue daydreams of profit rolling in*
With the ability to employ and send staff worldwide, you can now check up on them, share files, and work together towards your business goals. Suddenly, small scale businesses gets offered a place in the big league.
So there you have it. Turning to the cloud really is the best decision your business could possibly make.
For more information on this topic, and on the importance of technology integration within your business – take a read of our eBook “The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Rostering” where we discuss this further.
(1) A History of Cloud Computing. http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/A-history-of-cloud-computing