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09.16.2011
One of the basics of the cloud is that it has created a level playing field when it comes to competition between small and large businesses. Many of the first wave of cloud users were, in fact, innovative small businesses who saw the value of putting some aspects, if not all of their operations, in the cloud. Here are five good business operation areas for any small business to consider moving to the cloud.
1. Communication – This is a key tool for any business but can be a vital one for a small business. VoIP was one of the early applications of the cloud for communications, and then came online video conferencing. Today you can add cloud email, instant messaging, video chat and more to that arsenal. And the beauty of most of them is that they are not only often inexpensive to implement, they will make your business more efficient.
2. File Sharing – As business becomes more mobile and remote offices more common, being able to keep your files in the cloud just makes good sense. Your clients can access the information they need, your email will not get filled up with all those bulky and memory consuming attachments and you will soon find that being able to pull up that file of information you need at the snap of a button on your smartphone is habit forming, and good for business.
3. Software – Why should a small business have to spend all of its time and money keeping software up to date when it doesn’t need to? Put your operations in the cloud with web-based software or services and everyone in the company is always on same application and same version of that application. Collaborate online, share files back and forth, send notes through the net, it is all possible and not as out of reach as you may think.
4. Backup – The dreaded backup is something all small businesses should do and often don’t. The days of having the last person out the door turn on the tape-drive backup machine are gone – and good riddance. Now you can back up everything in the cloud so no matter what happens, fire, hurricane or break-in, you are covered. There is no worse feeling then realizing your entire business just went up in smoke because your backup was on the machine next to that smoking hulk that used to be your computer.
5. Customer service – Today there are so many great cloud-based CRM programs it is hard to even know where to start. The cloud is the perfect tool for customer service, and for many small businesses, customer service is key to success.
This is truly just scratching the surface of the many great ways that the cloud makes sense for any small business. While it is true that not every business needs the cloud, and not every aspect of a business should be in the cloud, many small businesses find that moving the daily operations into it has made them more efficient, cost effective and that the ROI is better than they expected.
What are some of your favorite small business cloud applications?
Our newsletters and blogs are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. We invite you to engage in our online community by following us on Twitter @GMOCloud and ‘Liking’ us on Facebook.
09.15.2011
The Insurance Industry, a risk-averse culture that has been slow to adapt to the cloud, is finding that there are some avenues where moving to the cloud is making a lot of sense. When it comes to SaaS (Software as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) the insurance industry can see some real opportunities for new efficiencies that have many of the traditional carriers looking at moving some elements of their business to the cloud.
Security, however, remains a major concern for many in the industry, and with good reason. “Recent headlines about major data breaches have by no means allayed insurers’ anxieties around client data confidentiality,” comments Aite Group Director of Research, Clark Troy. He does, however, point out that there are some applications, including new business, underwriting and claims solutions, along with some industry-specific needs such as monthly analytical scoring that are particularly well suited for the cloud. With the monthly analytical scoring, most systems are running only 12 days out of the year, making this the perfect application for the cloud as there is then no need to pay for the other 353 days of the year when the infrastructure will sit idle.
“The beauty of it is that it is vapor – you push a button and it’s there and the second you have completed your activity, you tear it down,” says Steve Byrne, VP of Agency and Field Automation Technology and acting CTO of Harleysville Insurance. Byrne stresses that the cloud has been particularly useful for software development and testing.
“To buy the hardware for test environments is extremely expensive and they will sit idle most of the time anyway, ” comments Byrne. The cloud allows a company to “quickly provision the needed resources, including platform, database and operating systems, and applications, required to support and develop testing activities.”
Another advantage of the cloud is when an insurance company is looking at the possibilities of new business ventures. This kind of exploration often requires having IT acquire and build out infrastructure to support the new venture, and if it does not succeed you are left with unwanted infrastructure. A good example of this is Harleysville Insurance’s current opportunity to explore the development of disaster recovery. The model for this type of use allows them to create and put on hold the required structure, until it is needed in a disaster. The end result: they only pay for it when they need it.
Although Byrne readily admits that he would be uncomfortable moving core data into the cloud at this point in time, the possibilities that it opens up for other types of ventures makes it a good fit for his industry in that regard.
Our newsletters and blogs are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. We invite you to engage in our online community by following us on Twitter @GMOCloud and ‘Liking’ us on Facebook.
