Technology Simplified: top benefits of the Cloud for SMEs

The Indian SME and the Dynamic Nature
The Indian SME sector is one of the fastest growing industrial sectors and surely one which constantly faces many challenges. For any emerging economy the SMEs are one of the strongest parts of its economic backbone.

The dynamic changes which happen in the SME ecosystem, makes them more agile and swift, which empowers them to quickly create innovative solutions to address the challenges posed by the ever evolving marketplace, they operate in.

Technology: enabling the SME to be swift and agile
Technology has undoubtedly created many opportunities and changed the way business is conducted. The general trend of adoption has always been from the large enterprises to the smaller ones, but we are witnessing a change.

Technology: costs, risks and adoption:
Since its critical for SMEs to take result oriented investment decisions in all operational areas, technology adoption has been one of the key aspects. Largely technology has been related with costly licenses, growing costs, updating and managing costs, manpower costs and much more. Many SMEs also get stuck with the growing business complexities and the same with technology as well.

These challenges make the decision making for the CTO/ CIO critical, on what technology to adopt in the organisation. The risks weighed for the SME are always on the higher side.

Cloud has changed the game:
What is Cloud Computing: this Wiki article on Cloud Computing has an exhaustive explanation of the same!

1. Lowered cost/ Affordability – there is no need to install heavy servers, additional housing and maintenance cost, IT support staff and the best, pay as you use!
2. Scalable storage – If you need more space, it is just a mouse click away. You no more need to buy or invest into hardware
3. Remote access – since you can access your systems over the cloud anytime and anywhere, well, your staff has the power to be mobile and you as a business empower them with ready access to information
4. Access to enterprise-class service – New cutting-edge applications, platforms and infrastructure is available on the cloud at affordable costs
5. Re-knowned Technology Providers – Microsoft, Yahoo, Sales Force, IBM and Amazon are some of the most known names who are building services on the cloud for you, hence keeping your business always running
6. Easy to use and implement – its as easy as setting up your Google Mail account :)
7. Business Competitive Edge – Small and emerging businesses now can access smart business tools and technology, which originally was always available only to the large players.

This sounds good, So where is the problem for the SME?
The only problem is embracing technology and the know how. There are many resources from where you can get to know much about the cloud, but they are scattered and as the cloud market heats up with competition from large service providers, there is an overload of information for the small business owner.

If you would like to find out more about how cloud computing can help your business, increase productivity and much more, drop in a comment to this post and our experts will sure advice you right.