Lower costs
You’ll often hear low costs talked about as one of the most appealing aspects of cloud based services and in many cases, this is true. For businesses looking to invest in Software as a Service (SaaS), you can expect to save on your spending as their standard pay-as-you-go models mean you’re not paying for anything you’re not using, which results in lower costs and higher returns.
In terms of infrastructure, things can get a little more complicated depending on your particular business’ requirements. Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is often cost-efficient for a lot of larger organizations with more comprehensive needs and avoids expensive software and paying licensing and installation costs.
For the small-medium sized business, on the other hand, this could work out more expensive than the costs of a more modest local server set-up. SMEs are therefore better suited to the cloud based SaaS solutions, which can be activated or deactivated and will adapt to fit your business’ needs as they change.
Flexibility and Scalability
There is a great deal of flexibility that businesses can benefit from using cloud providers instead of local servers. As business demands change, cloud services can keep up, accommodating increased usage and activity as your business grows.
Cloud based applications and services can be purchased on-demand and with their pay-as-you-go structure, businesses are not locked into any costly investments that may not later serve their purposes.
On the back of this, cloud computing is importantly scalable, and in both directions. If your needs vary massively throughout the year, your cloud computing spend can reflect this. For example, you’ll only need to pay for the data storage you require at a particular time.
Data Control
One of the greatest concerns for any business is losing data and with the average cost of a data breach around £3.12m, you can understand why.
If you’re saving all your important data locally, you could end up in real trouble if you lose your data, be it due to hardware problems, human error or cyber-attack. A cloud based server centralizes all the data so it is easily accessible from any device with an internet connection.
This is why data storage is such a popular use of cloud computing, even if only as a backup solution so your data is kept securely offsite. By keeping your backups offsite and not linked to your network, you ensure that malware cannot access your backup data if you experience a ransomware attack.
Greater Accessibility
Businesses love how easy it is to access the Cloud. Cloud computing allows employees to obtain relevant company data wherever they are 24/7 as long as you’re connected to the internet; there’s no need to be close to a local server. There’s also no issue for those wanting to access the Cloud via their mobile phone, making working on the move entirely feasible.
This kind of ease of access is such a plus for the modern workforce who, especially post-pandemic, are more spread out and remote in their business operations.
More Effective Collaboration
Cloud computing services are a great facilitator of collaborative work. With files and documents all stored in one place, team members are able to view and edit the same information. A record is kept of any revisions and updates made so you know exactly what’s going on and don’t have to get confused over multiple versions of the same file.
With cloud services, you are able to collaborate not just with your internal team, but customers, partners and suppliers through a secure channel with full end-to-end encryption.
The Disadvantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses Limited
Limited control and visibility
The infrastructure is owned by your cloud service provider and while this is a positive in terms of reducing the need for any internal management, it can also be a concern when your business feels too far removed and with little control.
Security
According to Check Point, 94% of organizations are moderately to extremely concern about cloud security. When passing over valuable data to a third-party there are inevitably going to be concerns, especially considering the more limited control and visibility – how are you going to know your data is being protected?
The main security concerns around cloud based services are to do with misconfiguration and data breaches. While your cloud services will offer plenty of security settings, configuring them correctly is key.
Reliability
Of course one downside to cloud computing is that it is fully reliant on the internet, so if your internet cuts out, you won’t be able to access applications and services. This is arguably not a major issue and since we use the internet so frequently in our day-to-day work, it wouldn’t be any more of an inconvenience.