SMBs Should Embrace Tech

While startups and big enterprises are moving rapidly to the cloud, some SMBs are still stuck in traditional IT infrastructure. Unlike startups, these businesses have already invested such a sizable chunk in their enterprise IT that they are unwilling to spend more. And unlike the bigger enterprises they don’t  have the mental bandwidth involved in migration and possible rewriting of some of their services. However, I still believe cloud computing is the best way to go for SMBs in the long term. Here is why:

1. The cloud gives you more freedom in your hardware purchases – in traditional IT, you are often required to use a certain hardware configuration for the applications to work. This reduces your freedom and increases your purchasing costs. However, cloud computing allows your services to work with a greater variety of devices and helps you shop in a wider range.
2. The cloud helps you acquire a stronger IT team – for a small business, hiring a security, performance or scalability expert can be overkill. However, with cloud computing, you can employ remote resources to help you manage your security or performance requirements without having to have a dedicated, full-time member within your IT team.
3. The cloud can help cut IT costs – the fundamental premise of public cloud computing lies in economy of scale. Instead of having the server tucked in your office, managed by a dedicated team, the vendors can provide services to thousands of businesses leveraging common resources.
4. The cloud can help you to be more efficient – in many SMBs, the enterprise IT requirement outgrows IT infrastructure quickly. It is not always easy to forecast and plan the growth of the business, unlike the large enterprises. This means you are forced to estimate the appropriate size of your infrastructure, and most often you either end up under-using the systems or run out of space.
5. You can pay as you go – many SMBs are cash-strapped, and having an heavy capital outlay for IT infrastructure can cripple investment elsewhere. By moving capital expenses to operational expenses, you get to use your precious capital in the other areas of the company.
6. The cloud can help you to be better prepared for disasters– with cloud tools, you can easily set up your service to handle local disasters without keeping a lot of redundant servers lying around. You can also effectively set your backups and have a DR/BC (Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity) program just like the bigger corporations.

By Balaji Viswanathan