There are many benefits that come with operating in the cloud – increased uptime, automated backup, automatically updated software – to name a few. But, the most important one is the hardest to actually quantify. Cloud computing’s biggest boon to your business is productivity. It’s the streamlining of your communications and data flow. Here are 4 ways the cloud makes you more productive:
- Automation.Work product that requires back and forth and multiple versions can live in the cloud. Instead of each person having a document saved to their own machine and emailing versions back and forth, you can have a single shared document that lives in the cloud.Changes can be tracked to the user, notifications can be sent after alterations are complete. You will never have the wasted time of working on a piece of content only to find it’s the wrong version when you’re done. Notifications that actions of one party are complete are automatically sent to the other parties, keeping the work process flowing, instead of start and stop.
- Workplace Flexibility.The cloud enables your team to stay connected wherever they are, whenever they need to. That’s not to say they should be available all the time. It means that when employees are traveling for business, they can keep forward momentum instead of waiting to get back to the office. It gives flexibility in the event that they are unexpectedly unable to be physically in the office. This can be a great benefit to the business as well as to the employees.
- Asynchronous CollaborationThis ties in to the previous two benefits. In order to get a project completed, we don’t all have to be in a scheduled meeting in a particular boardroom. The team can be anywhere and work on a “living” document over the course of time and keep it moving. The key efficiency gain here is — again — timeliness. Once again, one party does not need to wait upon the other to participate in the process yet true collaboration, and the benefits therein, is taking place.
- Faster Learning CurveMuch like the intuitive design of many smartphones, cloud apps are built to be more intuitive than traditional, offline software. This makes them generally easier to adopt for the greater group. The quicker you get your team onboarded and using the cloud solutions, the quicker they will be integrated, without a steep learning curve.
You are already using cloud computing whether you realize it or not. Office 365, Dropbox, Docusign, GoToMeeting, all cloud apps. If you’re interested in moving your critical business systems to the cloud, we have a solution. Read our article 8 Ways a Complete Cloud Solution Wins. Then contact us about Complete Cloud.
