Do business faster and better with cloud technology

20 years ago a ‘rush order’ meant overnight delivery. After-hours calls were recorded on an answering machine. And a growth strategy was measured in years.

Today, business moves faster. Communication is immediate and 24/7. Innovation happens overnight and anything is possible. Yet, it can also feel overwhelming. How can a small-medium business possibly keep pace?

This is where the right technology enters the picture. The advances that are transforming the business world are the same tools that you can use to transform your business. With cloud services and mobile devices, you can quickly adapt to change and expand your business efficiently, without expanding your budget.

Prepare your business for growth

At the point when your business is ready to grow, you can’t afford for your technology to hold you back. When a customer knocks on your virtual door to buy your product or service, you need to open it – immediately.
Buying and setting up new hardware can take weeks. But in the cloud, growth can take minutes. With Office 365, you can quickly equip new employees with the tools that they need without a lengthy deployment process. Plus, with per-user licensing, you can meet the demands of your workforce, pay only for what you use and support hundreds of different mobile devices.

Adjust to changes in customer demand

Need more storage? More support for your applications? Maybe you need to address seasonal fluctuations rather than long-term growth.

With a cloud hosting solution, such as Microsoft Azure, you can use services and apps – and add new ones – on an as-needed basis. For example, you can quickly expand file storage and apps such as order processing, stock and payroll in late August to handle a busy season from September to December; and just as easily reduce capacity in January to conserve costs. Instead of paying year-round for technology that is often underused, you pay only for what you’re actually using in a given month. And there are no costly delays or large capital investments when you change capacity, be it using Azure to host mobile apps or implementing a new customer service.

Expand beyond your walls

You can also use technology to expand your reach, work faster and be more productive.

Start with your employees’ devices. Are they all running Windows? If not, your workers might be wasting time struggling with different experiences across their devices. Standardising on one platform, such as Windows, will improve employee productivity, while allowing for broad device choice, be it based on personal preference or job function.

What about the applications running on your devices? Are they cloud-based? Move to Office 365 and your employees will still get the same Office experience that they’re used to, whichever device they use, whether it happens to be an iPad or an Android-based device.

And you can easily manage these devices and provide more secure mobile access to company data, through cloud-based device and PC management solutions like Microsoft Intune and Office 365.

In a nutshell

We know that the world is moving faster than ever. With the right technologies in place, you can grow effectively, respond quickly to seasonal fluctuations and outpace the competition.