Ten Reasons to move to the Cloud Cloud computing is now everywhere and many of us already use it at home with services like Hotmail, Gmail, YouTube and Dropbox. Are you thinking about using cloud services within your business? Well, you should! Take a look at ten reasons below why you should move your IT services into the cloud. 1. Cost. No Capital Expenditure is required. Cloud based services work on a subscription pricing model. Think of cloud computing providers as a utility company, its like using electricity – you only pay for what you use. Hardware costs are also dramatically reduced. No on premise servers, air conditioned computer rooms or expensive backup solutions and none of the costs assosciated with keeping those environments operational 24/7. Streamline your IT resources. Less staff are required to “fire fight” leaving you free to focus staff on other projects or provide IT services that drive efficiencies throughout the business. 2. Quick and Easy Implementation. No hardware or software installation - migrate data, configure and go! 3. Increase Productivity. Give employees accessibility to data and services from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Enable laptop users to access synchronised data whilst out of the office and allow users to “bring your own device” and connect to business services increasing the productivity of staff. 4. Resilience. Cloud Computing providers invest millions in building secure, resilient data centres. This ensures that data is secure and backed up giving greater up-time. On top of this 24/7 support is offered. Not many businesses would be either prepared or could afford to pay for this level of business continuity. 5. Flexibility. Subscription pricing model allows you to easily throttle up as your business grows or down if you need to cut back. It offers alternative working environments to your staff - people can work from anywhere with an Internet connection. Take advantage of the latest software and systems that historically only large businesses with large budgets have been able to. 6. Better Collaboration. Employees can work on the same documents and share data easily - project teams spread across multiple sites can work as effectively as if they were in the same office. 7. Never miss an opportunity. Always be contactable - your customers, suppliers and partners will be able to get hold of you when they need to. Cloud based telephone systems allow you to roll out virtual call centres configured exactly around your business processes. Hosted email means that you can pick up and respond to emails from anywhere. 8. Security. A lot of businesses these days are deploying laptop computers to their staff and desktop’s are becoming a thing of the past. How many laptops users are actually backing up their data? The same now applies to mobile devices. Using cloud services, data can be centrally and securely stored and accessed with ease. This means that data is not held on the device itself. So the chances of data loss are minimal if it gets damaged, stolen or lost. 9. Get a Competitive Edge. Cloud services allow you to embrace the latest technology. This means that you can act fast - roll out services that benefit your customers quickly and easily. In addition you can cater for your customer requirements without engaging in lengthy, costly projects. 10. Remove the headache of software roll outs and upgrades. Take advantage of the latest versions when they’re released. All patches and upgrades are delivered as part of the service. www.bimotech.co.uk