Using high-quality cloud computing is typically a lot cheaper than building basic local infrastructure, but that isn’t the only reason why it’s something you should look into. In fact, it carries a vast number of advantages you might never have thought about.
To provide a little more insight into why it would be a mistake to overlook what cloud computing could do for your business, here are 6 benefits of cloud computing that may never have occurred to you:
Minimized risk
We live in interesting times, no matter which way you look at it. The global political climate is shaky, the advent of granular analytics has produced a rise in speculative markets that were already booming, and technological standards are shifting all the time. There have certainly been stabler times to run a business.
When using cloud computing, you get to neatly sidestep a large portion of this risk though safeguarding redundancies, remote hardware, and resource use scaled to your specific requirements. You no longer face the risk of wasting money buying a server setup more powerful than you really need, or going in the other direction and spending too little on a server that ultimately undermines your efforts.
Essentially, you place yourself in a position of no longer having to speculate about the future of your industry. You get to carry on with your usual work knowing that if anything goes wrong with the hardware setup hosting your online operation, it will simply and seamlessly be moved over to another, allowing it to carry on as before with no perceptible change.
Expanded technological possibilities
With local hosting and processing, no new opportunities arise without you making alterations to the configuration. While there is nothing stopping you from making sweeping changes to the setup, it simply isn’t practical. When are you likely to have the time, expertise and resources to do something like that while running a business?
Running your business from the cloud places it in the middle of a world of possibilities. Not only can the hardware that supports it scale, and the platform be moved across to a more powerful server whenever warranted, but it is also primed and ready for integration with any new technology that arrives on the scene— whether that technology is cloud-only, as is very common, or reliant upon hardware that can easily be connected to the cloud.
Think about the shift to HTTPS, and then the leap to HTTP2, or even the phasing out of Flash and the move towards HTML5 standardization. All of these changes are awkward for owners of self-hosted websites to implement, but easy for cloud websites because just one hosting package can be upgraded at the cloud source and produce changes for thousands or even millions of customers.
Easier collaboration
Being a one-note worker with a single set of niche skills is rapidly losing its viability, with the internet rendering certain skills unnecessary and rewarding those with the understand and flexibility to learn new things and become multi-faceted. With cloud storage and software, the work done on specific projects and pieces of work isn’t limited by location or department as it once was— anyone with the permissions can contribute from anywhere.
That also means that every person on your team can keep track of what their colleagues are doing, see how work is progressing, and provide assistance through suggestions, comments, and the provision of resources. If an important employee is on vacation overseas but feels like assisting in some small way, they can go online in the middle of the night and offer some tips.
Through supporting the development of new skills and making it possible for employees to contribute to projects from anywhere with an internet connection, this results in better work, happier clients, and more fulfilled workers.
Greater flexibility
With so much competition out there, any business that can’t rapidly pivot to take advantage of new gaps in the market is going to suffer relative to more adaptable rivals, and running your online operation in the cloud gives you unparalleled flexibility for changing your approach and trialing new products or services.
The latter is particularly important because there’s a lot of money to be made and (authority to be secured) by being the first to bring something to market, regardless of where the idea originated or what role you played in coming up with it.
Think about how custom clothing printers get a lot of their work. In the heady 24/7 world of social media, a new T-shirt idea can arise in response to an event getting a lot of buzz, and create an opportunity that will be profitable but fleeting. With a custom printer service on hand, you can start offering it for sale right away without having to do any testing or source any materials.
In the same way, cloud resources are broad and (in principle) unlimited, and they equip you to build a new connection between your system and another in a matter of minutes.
Superior UX
UX standards have skyrocketed since the smartphone became mainstream, and they continue to get better with every day that passes. Using complex analytics data, testing methods and countless device and platform types, we can now see exactly where an interface is falling short, and make the necessary alterations.
Embracing the cloud in the UX design process makes the options so much richer. You can deliver high-resolution images via a nearby CDN server, majorly improving page speed and lifting the conversion rate as a result. You can bring in data through connections with social network logins, making it much faster for a user to ‘register’ in your system.
Since cloud technology puts a vast amount of data and customization options at your fingertips, you get to pass that level of utility to your users, saving them time and effort and ultimately making them much more likely to stick around.
Furthermore, through using cloud-hosted design software, you can ensure that your UX is swiftly adapted to suit changes in UX best practises as they are rolled out. This is a big reason why many businesses use automated CMS options like Shopify to build their websites; if you get an inexpensive storefront design, you can simply sit back and relax, knowing that it will be maintained and updated without you having to get involved.
Worldwide reach
I touched upon it somewhat in talking about the ease of collaboration, but it bears noting as a dedicated point that cloud software allows access and connection from anywhere with internet access. Even if your business only works in a single area, cloud computing gives you so many options about where and how you could work in the future.
Take moving office as an example. With local computing, it’s best to invest in hardware (which carries major upfront costs), and you must then protect and migrate that hardware very carefully in the event of a move. With cloud computing, you can simply rent hardware, and when you want to head to a different office and possibly a different city (or even country), you need only rent new hardware when you arrive— your entire platform will be exactly where you left it.
And if you did choose to target a foreign market with your website, you’d have options. You could use an automated translation service to provide a relationally-appropriate version of your site, or just hire remote freelancers to translate it. Either way, you could then place it on a nearby CDN to ensure decent speed.
So there you are: 6 hidden benefits to using cloud computing. To learn more, read about what Easy Cloud can do for your business. With so much on offer, what reason do you have not to take advantage?
Victoria Greene is an ecommerce marketing expert and freelance writer who couldn’t keep track of her work without cloud storage. You can read more of her work at her blog Victoria Ecommerce.
