The time is now, yes the recession ship has only just left the shore but if you have a business idea, now has never been a better time to start it up. Here are 6 reasons why you should consider using Cloud services when staring a business.
- 24/7: Starting a business is an obsession, one that you will live, drink and breath, certainly in the beginning and probably forever. Your systems for planning, financial control, delivery, communication and collaboration should be available to you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
- Location and Hardware unaware!: You will be busy, you will need to be everywhere all of the time so it makes sense that you and your staff can access everything you/they need from where ever you/they are, on what ever device is to hand. Cloud services at most just need a browser. If you need to be truly mobile most cloud services come with Smartphone/Tablet apps that allow you to work wherever you are on what ever device you want. From a desktop to a smartphone, from a fully fledged Laptop to a barebones Chromebook, cloud services deliver.
- Communication and Collaboration: You may be small to start with but you will still need to discuss and work on your plan with your staff and trusted advisors. Cloud services makes communication (Skype, Google Hangouts and VOIP) easy and with collaboration built in from the ground up working in a team on a single document is a breeze with systems such as Google Drive.
- Enterprise Level: Small businesses need to compete at a big business level. Small businesses have the personal touch advantage so being able to use the same sort of systems as a large business should put them in front. From CRM through to back end accounting, Cloud services allow the Small business to use enterprise level systems.
- Concentrate on Your Business: As a new business owner you want to spend time building your business, you don't want to spend time making sure your data is backed up or implementing updates and patches to systems. Cloud services are centrally managed by experts far better than you at sorting out technical issues. Let them keep the lights on whilst you build your business.
- Cost: Cost under pins reasons 1-5 , from being able to use hardware that is to hand and already purchased through to cheap communication and collaboration systems which a few years back would have been out of financial reach. But cloud systems are themselves cheaper than their desktop equivalent. Cloud suppliers embrace the rental model, purchase what you need when you need it. Need 10 users for an initial sales push then purchase 10 users just for the first 2 months and then roll back to your 3 permanent staff. If your needs are initially small you may even find that the systems are free!! Simple maths implies that over the years Cloud becomes more expensive but this its not simple maths when you factor in regular and irregular support, machine and software updates and downtime it is clear cloud wins hands down.
So if you are considering starting a business, look to the Cloud for solutions.