How To Use Cloud Computing For Your Startup’s Growth

Whenever a startup founder says that they don’t use cloud computing in any form, I find it hard to believe them. Maybe a decade ago this was possible, but today, it is nearly impossible not to use cloud computing. It might confuse many people, and I would say only one thing to clear this confusion, don’t we all use email? Is it possible for you to spend a day without checking or sending emails? All business owners and startup entrepreneurs use cloud computing for normal functioning. I agree, they might not use this technology extensively, but they still use it.

Cloud computing is deeply embedded in our daily functioning, and it offers flexibility to all types of businesses. The advantages and benefits of cloud computing are more for startups and small companies, why? Because these startups run on a low budget and have limited sources of income. Big organizations can hire an expert IT team or have their own cloud hosting, but startups simply can’t do that.     

Still not convinced? Let’s dig a little deeper-

· Scalability and customization

Startups are growing businesses; their operations scale rapidly and demand for resources keep increasing exponentially. Cloud computing gives startup owners an opportunity to fulfill this ever increasing demand with minimum investment.

The cloud technology providers often give on-demand services according to your startup’s relevant industry. In fact, you can upgrade these services in later stages of your startup to meet the requirements of your growing business.

· Accessibility and availability

What would you do if a client needs some editing to be done urgently, before or after office timings? Normally, startup founders are caught up in situations like this because the relevant data is on the computer sitting lavishly in office.

Is it impossible for your employees and you to carry important data everywhere you go? With cloud computing, employees can access data saved on cloud server from any computer. Also, people working in different departments can share resource over the internet.

· Savings and cost-effectiveness

One major challenge that business owners face in initial days is cost cutting. You lose money in just a blink of the eye if you are not careful and obviously, startups don’t have big bucks to spend relentlessly.

Apart from cost-cutting, there is one more solution, savings and cost-effectiveness, which you can achieve with cloud technology. When startup entrepreneurs build website, install hardware, physical storage devices, and purchase expensive software, they spend a lot of money. This cost can be reduced with a cloud server. Of course, you may ask, how? With cloud computing, you only pay for what you use, and you can later adjust this storage according to your business needs. It means if you use less storage you pay less and when your startup demands more storage, you buy more.

According to a survey, if your sales team moves from paper to paperless functioning you can save around 12000 USD in one year. This amount can be lower for small businesses, but the take away is cloud storage could save you a good amount of money.

· Security and reliability

Though critics frequently argue that cloud computing is not secure and reliable, it is better than your physical storage. Storage devices can succumb to malfunctions and system glitches, and chances are once this happens, you won’t be able to retrieve any information. While nothing is 100% reliable and cloud can also fail, the cloud backup system can save you from losing important information.

The security and reliability provided by cloud computing are the main features because this is the sole purpose of cloud providers. They have an expert IT team and advance backup system to recover if the worst happens. Additionally, all this is done on provider’s end, and you don’t have to worry about even a single thing. Now, evaluate, what is better, constantly worrying about in-house physical storage or carefree working with cloud storage?

· Easy integration

Startup founders are often discouraged when they think about losing information while integrating with the cloud platform. This old myth misleads many business owners, and sometimes integration becomes the reason for not migrating to cloud.

No doubt, earlier it was a real task to shift to cloud and migrate legacy system, but with advancement in technology, all this is possible. It is easy to extract information from SaaS platforms and shift legacy data to the cloud system.

· Collaborative working

In every startup, there comes a stage where you have to strike a balance between the onshore and offshore team. If this team involves content writers, marketers, and other such employees, who have minimal storage requirements, everything is simple to manage. However, if your offshore team has graphic designers and developers then what would you do? How will you possibly share such huge amount of data? Nothing is impossible, but the feasibility of maintaining this balance without cloud storage is really low.

Cloud not only solves data sharing issues but also it gives you a secure platform. Cloud sharing is more secure from outside attacks than email conversations and other such methods.

· Strong business foundation 

Continuous functioning and uninterrupted work flow are the main ingredients for a startup’s effective working. Imagine, on one working day, a computer crashes, and it is not possible to recover data. You should consider yourself lucky if you have backed up all your systems because most startups don’t have enough funds to do that. In the other scenario, where there’s no backup, you lose all your data and your team has to start from square one.

If your startup has a strong foundation and recovery system, which you get with cloud storage, these minor issues will not break the flow of your work. In short with cloud computing, your startup can run efficiently even in extreme situations.

Cloud technology is growing as you read this and many organizations are adopting it daily. The reason behind this change does not amuse me because cloud computing has the power to take over the market.

I have rarely come across anyone who tried cloud storage and then paced backward towards traditional methods. Startups founders already have to worry about a thousand things, from funding to projects everything is a hassle. If a technology can reduce this burden at cost effective rates, then what more could we ask for?

Catch up in the race and adopt cloud technology for a stress-less working environment, better storage system, and efficient backup capabilities.