Cloud computing offers startup businesses plenty of competitive advantages in today’s challenging business market. Most importantly, it helps cut costs, which is imperative to the success of oftentimes budget-ridden SMBs. Cloud computing provides these businesses with the distributive IT hardware and software that helps to save on the company’s infrastructure. This allows business owners to adopt emerging advanced technologies without having to make numerous costly purchases, ultimately allowing these startups to be more effective and agile in the marketplace, which translates to big changes for small businesses.
New affordable advancements in cloud technologies give smaller businesses and startups alike the opportunity to compete with larger companies that have bigger budgets. These progressions help to level the playing field in that they provide an opportunity to improve services, increase accessibility, leverage competitive advantage and control costs.
Read on as we discuss the reasons why adopting cloud computing systems can benefit your startup business.
Improved Cloud Computing Collaboration
Cloud computing improves collaboration efforts and promotes productivity, because the cloud allows employees to access files, documents and other valuable materials from anywhere, via any Internet capable device. There are no limits to when and where your staff can work.
This ability to save and access files in the cloud without limitation ultimately enables employees to collaboratively work on projects and documents in a cohesive manner regardless of location. It means that no matter where you or team members are, you can:
- Cohesively work on master documents
- Upload data, charts and other useful materials
- Comment and edit others’ work
Minimized Communication Costs
Cloud computing minimizes communication costs for your firm, offering immense savings for small businesses that cannot be denied. With the help of virtualization, the value of the physical server hardware increases, which means that your business will be able to do more with less. This negates the need for large spaces, which in turn can decrease infrastructure costs. It also translates to less power usage and decreased IT requirement expenditures. Not only that, but it also means less maintenance, upgrades, hardware, installation services and support expenses, all of which for are savings that are immeasurably valuable for startups.
Also on StartupNation.com: Cut Costs by Going to the Cloud
Increased Mobility
Mobility is a privilege that businesses are beginning to see the value in. Increasing your startup’s flexibility and mobility allows you to cater to the ever-popular business world that encourages remote work and flexible work arrangements. Cloud computing gives your staff access to work materials when not at work, which allows them to continue working outside of the workplace. This can build stronger networks, gain important connections and capture business opportunities that might have otherwise not been possible. Additionally, improved mobility allows you as a small business owner to manage your business remotely any time of day. Cloud computing also helps you to save, in that you can integrate a BYOD or “bring your own device” system into your workplace, negating the necessity to spend thousands on workplace devices.
Scalability
Cloud computing services allow businesses to flexibly and inexpensively scale resources up or down automatically. That is, opposed to the traditional method which requires human intervention and the addition or subtraction of expensive, complicated software and hardware. The virtualized nature of the cloud makes resource additions much more accessible and affordable. Thus, the mobility, accessibility, affordability and productivity that the cloud can bring to a startup is crucial for long-term success in today’s challenging marketplace.
If you have insights to share about how cloud computing can be of benefit to startup companies, please share your thoughts in the comments.
