Cloud computing is in the right position to transform the landscape of businesses. Cisco forecasts that the cloud will manage 94% of workloads by 2021, and the coronavirus epidemic is accelerating the process.
With the virus causing much panic in the world of business, no entity can afford to not be ready for the change. Traditional, server-based computing (SBC) solutions are possibly slower as compared to today’s sophisticated technologies. Embracing cloud computing confirms that your entity has essential tools to handle any challenge that might emerge in the future.
An increasing number of entities are now headed down the online route, but some of these lack the required digital infrastructure. When looking to keep your business unharmed until the epidemic period is over, you will require cloud computing. Below are 5 ways in which the cloud could help you during this period.
Document Sharing
When a crisis like COVID-19 emerges, entities may not want to rely on email to share documents as there will be countless emails to take care of. Sharing documents through the cloud possibly helps to make key details accessible to anybody who wants to view these without searching for hours.
With the coronavirus epidemic making workers go home, collaborating remotely is now tougher and more significant than ever. Fortunately, document-sharing solutions have started to respond to the epidemic. Dropbox, for one, has integrated several of their features with Zoom in order to enable a seamless collaboration. Applications such as Google Docs or Dropbox simplify maintaining tight control over your important information, while all else are prone to instability.
Cybersecurity
While cyber-attacks have invariably been a big threat to businesses that have become more and more digitalized, the epidemic is worsening the issue. McKinsey’s research reveals that the pressure on certain businesses and the proliferation of people who work from home have made breaches much more likely to occur.
Cloud-based cybersecurity is a potential solution to several issues that entities encounter in this domain. Putting security operations to the cloud can offer your entity much more digital capabilities than before, with numerous top security platforms using AI to discover and stop threats live.
Customer Service
Do not think that the epidemic has affected businesses alone. Consumers around the world are also affected in terms of reduced incomes and greater uncertainty. Research featured on Harvard Business Review’s website discovered that COVID-19 is making it even tougher for contact centers to get by, which will worsen over time.
Using the cloud for your business’s customer service will definitely aid in reducing these issues. This form of customer service has potential advantages such as additional bandwidth and extra speed, plus it can also simplify things for your customer service agents. With the help of Google Cloud, the cloud-based contact center named ‘Five9’ enables CS agents greater real-time access to pertinent customer details. Businesses should be capable of handling the high number of calls in this period to work, and fortunately, the cloud possibly helps them to achieve this.
Working Remotely
Several offices have closed temporarily due to the coronavirus epidemic, but there are signs that it might have equally deep effects in the long-term. One of these signs is that 74% of entities plan to downsize, even after COVID-19 goes away. While remote work may have been becoming more popular over the last few years, there are more home-based employees today than ever before. This means that entities should be capable of dealing with their whole workforces situated beyond their offices.
While the aforesaid video conferencing and file-sharing platforms are important parts of a work-at-home model, these are several other tools available for use. Zoom enables making smooth and continuous video calls. However, using the platform can reduce the internet speed, and it is potentially unruly sometimes. On the other hand, the messaging platform ‘Slack’ now only requires less random access memory to work and it is speedier than before. This means Slack is a cloud-communication product worth considering using because it will keep your employees in constant communication when needed.
Scaling
When it comes to size, COVID-19 is a period of much uncertainty for almost every business. Certain digital companies, like Amazon, are seeing more growth, but several others now face the likelihood of temporary leaves of employees and/or worker count reductions. To remain solvent, an entity should be capable of scaling up and scaling down its operations quickly.
A physical web server is not needed for the cloud to work, but it enables using as little or as much computing power as one requires. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study shows that designing a data center project possibly takes as long as 12 months. This much time might not be available to your entity. Cloud computing allows scaling your business dynamically, without having to wait longer.
With the epidemic comes unknown things that are never seen before, so your entity should deal with everything involved in the situation to remain ready. Relying on the cloud possibly allows running each important business operation from home or office, and it has many other benefits.
