While more and more large companies are jumping on the ‘cloud bandwagon’, there is still apprehension among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) about whether the cloud is here to stay or just a fad. SMEs still depend on large companies for “trial and error” of this disruptive new technology. The argument is that large companies have a lot of money to spend, and only when a technology or system is shown to work in large companies do SMEs feel safe to adopt it.

However, these doubts are quickly dissipating as more and more success stories of cloud adoption by SMEs come to light. Groupon is a great example of a company that grew rapidly with a minimal asset base by leveraging cloud solutions from providers like Salesforce.com and Amazon – managing a global user base of over 35 million in less than 5 years from your start.

In fact, one school of thought is that the core factors of cloud-based platforms – easy scalability, lower operating costs, faster implementation, and faster ROI – are more valuable to SMBs as they face tougher competition for survive, compared to their large counterparts.

Here are some of the main factors driving cloud adoption by SMEs:

1. Access to data in real time and ease of scalability

SMEs cannot afford expensive centralized data storage systems, which means that their data is spread out across multiple computers and may not generally be accessible remotely. This can represent a significant challenge for SMBs, as their business demands flexibility in terms of both personnel usage and operations. Cloud-based applications allow all data to be kept in a single repository from where it can be accessed easily and remotely 24×7. Furthermore, since the cloud service provider owns the updates and other changes to the application, the SME can manage its IT operations with a lean physical infrastructure and skeletal support team.

Second, the easy speed up or slow down feature offered by most cloud providers enables SMBs to scale their resources to reflect their growth path.

2. Availability of comprehensive solutions in the cloud

Business processes, such as storing and distributing data, creating and assigning tasks, communicating and collaborating with colleagues, are valuable to the success of any organization. The increase in the number of business solutions on cloud platforms that are end-to-end solutions. or can be easily integrated with other complementary cloud solutions on the market, it gives SMBs the benefit of taking full advantage of the cloud for their business needs, at a fraction of the cost of traditional on-premises solutions.

3. Greater data security

Cloud-based applications are believed to keep data more secure than small-scale hardware storage facilities deployed by SMBs, as data confidentiality and security are often critical to a business’s value proposition. cloud provider.

4. Cost benefits

It is important that SMEs operate with minimal costs due to the competitive environment in which they find themselves. The pay-as-you-go models offered by cloud applications mean they have negligible up-front costs and can take advantage of the latest technology solutions with reasonable operating costs. This enables SMBs to afford enterprise-class solutions for their business needs.

All in all, cloud applications are here to stay and while it is still early, it is clear that SMBs will need to adopt cloud technology in the future if they want to stay ahead of the challenges and competition.