A cloud here and a cloud there: many companies shop around for their daily dose of Everything-as-a-Service. But in 2022—and indeed, already in 2021—this is no longer practical. Instead, you need to take a more holistic approach. Here are three reasons why you can’t afford to be without a cloud strategy.
1. Everyone works remotely
Maybe your employees are not remote all the time, but it’s likely that they work away from the office at least some of the time. That makes it inevitable that you will need to rely on the cloud. After all, it’s the only good way to unlock your data, make applications available, and tie everything together transparently.
Is that safe? Absolutely. Everything you would normally put behind a firewall or VPN can also be stored in a (private) cloud solution. That said, a VPN still has a function in a cloud strategy: it’s a good idea to allow users who are using a public Wi-Fi network to connect through an additional layer of security.
2. Flexible costs
The cloud offers a tremendous amount of flexibility, and it’s indispensable if you want to grow as an organization in the near future or embark on the digital transformation. Take the cost aspect and, as an example, a telephone system. Like it or not, this almost always involves VoIP, telephony over the internet. You may still be using a telephone exchange with landline phones, but as soon as the signal has left the building, it is converted into a data signal via the internet. If you need to upgrade, you’ll have to shell out some serious money again for a new hardware exchange and perhaps a new landline phone.
That’s why it pays to look at a cloud solution. The internet connection is already there, so why not opt for VoIP right away? In accounting terms, this represents a switch from CAPEX to OPEX, and in plain language that means no expensive upfront investment and only pay for use, because these are operational costs.
Of course, a telephone system is just one example. The same applies to other hardware, even entire server farms, with computers and all: Infrastructure-as-a-Service.
3. Easy to adapt
You only pay for what you actually use, which means that if you don’t use it anymore, you cancel it. Or you take out additional subscriptions when needed. Continuing with telephony as an example, you don’t need to buy an expensive telephone exchange with sufficient capacity when you only need a few ‘lines’ at the time. And conversely, you don’t have to buy a bigger exchange as your business grows. Scaling up your organization has never been as easy as it is now, and it’s just as easy to downsize again when times get tough.
This works at all levels, including software licenses or computing in the form of servers. Flexibility makes it very easy for a company to adjust its strategy—to scale up or down—without major consequences for capital investments (which you should make or have already made).
The cloud is not a solution for everything, but it is a solution for many things. No business can do without it, so it’s important to use a solid strategy to incorporate the cloud into your business operations.
Start with a hybrid cloud strategy by deploying endpoint management via Easy Software Deployment. Book a demo here and discover how Easy Software Deployment can modernize your endpoint management.