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DQ News: How Cloud Hosting Could Grow Your Business

Times are tough economically and especially so for small and medium sized businesses, many of which are looking to cut costs wherever they can.  But there is a saying that in order to make money you have to spend it, trouble is where should you be spending it?  Most business owners would look to enlarging stock levels or adding to their marketing budgets, but in fact investment in your business infrastructure could actually save you money whilst helping you to make it.

 The Importance of Efficiency

Improving efficiency with internal systems and practises is often a high priority for many businesses no matter what their size.  Finding more efficient ways of working has never been more important, especially when looking to make cost savings. And whilst outsourcing some areas of administration is a good start, it is actually your IT needs that could offer the best means of cutting costs and improving efficiency.

I began thinking about this after a conversation with my younger sister.  She works in recruitment, specializing in placing employees with job providers and offering on-the-job training placements.  She currently works from home, taking in referrals and finding suitable job placements.  But her working process is flawed.  She spends around 10 hours per day processing referrals, something which I initially said was a good thing, it surely meant business was thriving.  But she pointed to the fact that all referrals come to her over the phone, not via email because of security concerns over sending this kind of sensitive data.

She went on to explain that as each referral comes in she is contacted by phone and has to manually write down all the details, a practice that takes around 20 minutes.  Not a very efficient process.  I asked why they were not using a secure email server and was told they were saving money by using a free hosting service which was not particularly secure.  I suggested a move to cloud hosting but was told her boss had turned this idea down as being too expensive.

 When Free Isn’t Really Free

And therein is the flaw.  You may think that a ‘free service’ is the ultimate cost cutter, but this can be counterintuitive as rarely are such things efficient, reliable or even productive, especially when talking in terms of IT. Taking down referrals ‘by hand’ over the phone will often lead to mistakes as well as being time consuming.  Receiving them electronically will mean a faster, more efficient means of working with placements being filled quicker and fewer billable hours.  Surely that means a better service for all concerned?

Why cloud hosting?

Cloud hosting is enjoying strong growth and it is a sector that will continue to grow as businesses realize it’s potential.  By switching to this form of virtual hosting businesses will save money on their IT requirements and negate the need to invest in their own internal server and staff to maintain it. 

But is it secure?

Security within cloud environments has been a hot topic of debate over the last few months, however, industry experts point to cloud hosting via an established provider with a data center as being as secure, if not more so, than most in-house setups.  Security providers are working pro-actively to instil confidence in the market and attract more businesses to sign up.  The signs are it is beginning to work as some high profile companies are now switching their IT needs to cloud hosting environments in a bid to cut costs but maintain services.

For any business to grow there has to be inward investment in the infrastructure of the firm.  Everything from administration to stock control is computerized these days which can mean large scale investment in IT equipment and software.  Cloud hosting can offer businesses a means of incorporating the hardware and applications they need whilst making significant savings on the cost of installing their own in-house.  In turn the provider will maintain and manage the environment within the data center meaning businesses will not need to hire in additional staff.

In these times of austerity cuts and uncertainty within global markets businesses need to look at ways to cut their costs, maintain services and improve efficiency.  Rather than looking at ‘front of house’ operations it is the back office that can most often provide the best opportunities to save money, increase productivity and ultimately grow the business.  Cloud hosting offers a tremendous opportunity to achieve all of these for minimal investment and within a short period of time.

About the Author: Article by Georgina Clatworthy, a freelance writer of five years producing articles about technology, business and marketing.  I am not associated with Quality Tech but can recommend them for cloud hosting services.

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