The introduction of the internet broke down many barriers to entry once faced by smaller companies. It allowed businesses to compete globally in regards to geography without adding multiple points of distribution. Now the internet is leveling the playing field once again, via the cloud.
Previously, the high fixed costs of in-house IT infrastructure including hardware, software, upgrades and labor put the technology out of reach of smaller companies. Now, with the cloud, these same businesses can access enterprise-level tech at a fraction of the in-house expense by taking advantage of economies of scale and the as-a-Service model of deployment.
In today’s world, downtime is a luxury most businesses cannot afford, especially smaller ones. To prevent downtime, companies invest capital in redundant servers. Data in the cloud is automatically backed up to a server with built-in redundancy. Whether it’s a private or public cloud, your data remains accessible in the event of downtime on site.
For companies with cyclical revenue, or seasonal fluctuations, there may be a lot of unused IT capacity in the off season that eats up profits and could be re-invested in growth instead. The cloud allows for quick and simple scaling without major hardware investments. Businesses can ramp up their computing function in response to fluctuations and scale down as needed.
Running your business through a cloud computing strategy also allows you to have access to the latest, most up-to-date software and processing as the updates are automatic and don’t necessarily require hardware upgrades. This can also free up your in-house IT staff to focus on growth projects instead of maintenance.
In short, the cloud has flipped the script on imbalance between SMBs and enterprise. Even the smallest business can have a full, backed up IT infrastructure with 24/7 support. At CTG, we moved all our servers out of the building and our cost of maintenance on a daily, monthly, annual standpoint decreased drastically. It also allows our technical staff to tackle other projects that were on the list versus the day to day maintenance of our own infrastructure. Basically, the cloud allows massive economies of scale when it comes to accessing the latest technology, disrupting the status quo and allowing the little guy to compete on merits, not capital.
Corporate Technologies Group can help you move your business to the cloud.
We are vendor-agnostic. We have strategic partnerships with over 140 different Cloud, VoIP, and WAN network service providers and we understand the world of API interface. Not all service providers are able to offer this integration, we can help you navigate the API and Cloud World. We support clients from network design to implementation, post-installation support and remediation. We design your infrastructure to suit your business needs now and into the future.