The cloud is a buzzword in today's business environment and has become the technology standard for most companies. In fact, the cloud computing market is projected to reach £703 billion by 2025. If you're considering making the switch, we have outlined the top 10 benefits of cloud computing that are worth considering.
The trouble is, while it has been evident in 2022 that technology innovations can increase productivity and improve business collaboration no matter where workers are located, keeping up with advancements can be time-consuming and a challenge for any business. If you are not an IT expert, then you may worry that you are not always getting the best advice or making the right choices to push your business forward.
To combat this, thousands of businesses are turning to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) daily to get the support they need to succeed in 2023 and beyond. It could mean your business avoids a nasty cyber-attack or offer you access to IT infrastructure and software you otherwise wouldn’t have the budget for.
There are many advantages of outsourcing your IT support, but here are the top 10 that we believe will make the most change to your business throughout 2023 and beyond:
Increased Productivity
One indirect and often overlooked advantage is the impact on the efficiency and productivity of your operations. A small in-house IT team simply cannot provide the level of value-added services that an external IT support partner can. Outsourcing means your company will have access to additional tech services like those that help staff work remotely, and in turn, make the company as a whole more productive.
Scalability
Scalability is a key benefit of the cloud. Scaling up and down your cloud capacity is easy and cost-effective, making it ideal for organizations with fluctuating needs. Cloud adoption can also drive operational agility, making it an important factor for CIOs and IT Directors.
Another key benefit of the cloud is cost-effectiveness on-site infrastructure is expensive and cloud environments eliminate the need to invest in costly servers and computers. Instead, cloud computing operates on a subscription model, where you only pay for what you use. This is a significant cost-saving measure.
Budget Control and Cost Savings
It is no secret that it is incredibly costly to install IT infrastructure with networks, servers, security, storage, and a whole host of other components. If something breaks or fails, the onus is on your budget to handle unexpected expenses such those when a server breaks down. At times, this can make it difficult to track and stay within your budget.
When you outsource your IT support, you pay a fixed or per-user monthly fee which will cover any unexpected hardware failure that occurs. The price depends on your business requirements, but the point is, those fixed (and usually expensive!) costs are turned into variable costs, thus providing you with cost savings as well as giving you time to budget accordingly.
Environmentally Friendly
In addition to all these benefits for your business, moving to the cloud isn’t entirely a selfish act. Cloud computing not only uses fewer physical servers, but as you only use the energy you need, you don’t leave any oversized carbon footprints.
A study by Microsoft has found that cloud storage can be between 79-93% more energy efficient than a traditional on-premise data centre.
Cloud computing has become highly popular among businesses of all sizes because it offers considerable cost savings together with increased security, collaboration, and greater scalability. We are now at a point where the benefits of cloud computing over traditional on-site infrastructure are too significant to ignore for both small businesses and large corporate enterprises.
Security
One of the biggest worries business leaders have about moving the cloud is that it isn’t secure as their servers aren’t on-site where they can keep control of what happens to them. But really, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The cloud lifts your sensitive data from your hardware, so it is not at risk should your servers become compromised or damaged, or if a device is lost. You can even remotely revoke access at any time to ensure your files don’t get into the wrong hands.
Cloud providers are aware of how important security is and most will endeavor to maintain the strictest of security practices for their customers. At entrustIT, we take security very seriously. That’s why we invested to obtain and maintain the ISO 27001 accreditation and why all European customer data is stored in UK-based datacentres with their own ISO 27001 certification. Furthermore, we highly recommend that all our customers use two-factor authentication for their cloud environments to ensure only the correct individuals can access them.
Disaster Recovery and Backup
Business data is one of the most important assets in a company. If data is stored on-site, important information could be lost if a disaster was to strike. Many cloud environments have backup and disaster recovery built-in, making it easier than ever for businesses to stay safe.
The entrustIT cloud backup solution will ensure your data remains safe by taking regular screenshots of your data. Therefore, if the unexpected happens, you will be able to quickly restore the backup. Nothing is going to move in the right amount of time.
Quickly Implement the Latest Technology
A quality IT support partner will have the resources and partnerships to start new projects surrounding your IT systems immediately. In contrast, hiring the right person/people in-house and onboarding and training them could take weeks or even months. By outsourcing your IT support, you can bring in the latest technology and benefit from the experience of professionals for a fraction of the cost, saving time and money.
Maximise uptime
outages normally happen without warning. If you're a business that works on a 9-5 basis, this may happen overnight making it harder to deal with once it is discovered. Cloud providers will monitor your infrastructure 24/7 for any issues so they can deal with them before they become serious problems. Therefore, your business is up and always running and you can focus on your bottom line.
Level The Playing Field
Smaller businesses do not have the budgets or resources that large corporate enterprises have to invest in cutting-edge technology and services. Outsourcing your IT support can give you access to the same technologies and resources that larger companies enjoy, helping smaller companies act 'big.'
Proactive Maintenance
If your computers or hardware fail, customers and employees will get frustrated, and your bottom line will suffer. A good IT support partner will proactively manage your network at all times, working to identify and address issues in real time before they become serious problems. Moreover, most Managed Service Providers will undertake updates and fixes without you even knowing, helping to keep you ahead of the game and free up your internal IT team to work on the essential projects that drive your business forward.
Conclusion
Companies often struggle without dedicated IT support, leading to decreased productivity and increased costs. In the current climate, where technology plays an even larger role in business, outsourcing IT support can provide many benefits, including proactive maintenance, technical expertise, cost savings, and freeing up in-house resources. The entrust IT Group offers local support with professional experience, making it a reliable choice for companies of any size. To learn more about how entrust IT Group can help your business, contact us at 0330 002 0045 or enquiries@entrustit.co.uk.
