8 Benefits of Cloud-Based Solutions for Small Businesses
To shed light on how small businesses can leverage cloud-based solutions, we’ve gathered eight insightful strategies from experienced leaders, like managing directors and small business owners. From enhancing collaboration with cloud solutions to utilizing cloud for business scalability, these experts share their top strategies for small businesses to reap the benefits of the cloud.
- Enhancing Collaboration with Cloud Solutions
- Accessing Powerful Cloud-Based CRM Systems
- Leveraging Cloud for Job Search Engines
- Streamlining Finances with Cloud Accounting
- Adopting Cloud-Based Productivity and CRM Suites
- Evaluating Cost-Effective Cloud Solutions
- Improving Data Accessibility via Cloud
- Utilizing Cloud for Business Scalability
Enhancing Collaboration with Cloud Solutions
Small businesses can benefit from cloud-based solutions in several ways, including cost savings, scalability, and improved efficiency.
The biggest benefit for small businesses is the fact that they work so well for collaborations, especially among remote work teams.
Cloud-based solutions allow you to seamlessly collaborate among team members, regardless of their physical locations. Real-time document editing, file sharing, and remote access enhance teamwork and productivity. Without the use of a cloud-based solution for these situations, you’ll be missing out on a key component to collaborating as a remote team.
In fact, even companies that work in an office can benefit from cloud-based solutions for the ability to collaborate!
Michael Collins
Managing Director, Sphere IT
Accessing Powerful Cloud-Based CRM Systems
Cloud-based solutions can help small businesses a lot, and from what I’ve seen, one good way to use them is to use cloud-based customer relationship management systems. These platforms, like Salesforce or HubSpot, offer affordable access to powerful tools for handling customer interactions, sales, and marketing. At our company, we’ve seen how they help small businesses improve their operations, keep track of leads, and build strong customer relationships.
From my own experience, I know that a small e-commerce business can use a cloud-based CRM to track customer behavior, send personalized product suggestions, and set up follow-up emails automatically. This means that customers are happier, sales go up, and running costs go down. Cloud-based CRMs are also scalable, which means that small businesses can change and grow without having to make big infrastructure investments.
Salim Benadel
Director, Storm Internet
Leveraging Cloud for Job Search Engines
We are a small startup in the employment space, and our development budget is extremely low. We use Kinsta’s solution (hosted on Google Cloud) for our job search engine. The big advantage is that we don’t need to hire DevOps to scale our ElasticSearch database and our WordPress website on Kinsta.
The downside is that the hosting is way more expensive than custom-made solutions. So, there’s definitely a tradeoff between how much we can spend on developers and how much data we need to host.
Nathan Brunner
CEO, Salarship
Streamlining Finances with Cloud Accounting
One major way small businesses can benefit from cloud-based solutions is through streamlined financial management. Using cloud-based accounting software, like QuickBooks Online or FreshBooks, allows small business owners real-time access to their financial data from anywhere, not just a single office computer.
Because of this, we’ve seen businesses transform with cloud accounting. Real-time data access means quicker decisions and less guesswork. Clients love the freedom to check finances from anywhere, and the auto-backup feature has been a lifesaver more than once!
Kim Maine
Chief Numbler, Numble
Adopting Cloud-Based Productivity and CRM Suites
As an entrepreneur who has helped many small businesses adopt cloud technologies, I’ve seen firsthand the immense benefits. One strategy I always recommend is leveraging cloud-based productivity suites like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
The ability to collaborate in real-time on documents and access everything remotely streamlines operations.
Another game changer is adopting cloud-based CRM and marketing platforms, which provide invaluable data insights while eliminating costly servers and IT infrastructure.
For e-commerce, cloud-hosted web stores scale seamlessly with traffic spikes. The flexibility and cost savings of the cloud let small teams punch above their weight. Moving to the cloud was the best decision I made early on, enabling my startup to compete and unlock innovation.
Ankit Prakash
Founder, Sprout24
Evaluating Cost-Effective Cloud Solutions
Except for specific use-cases related to hardware product differentiation, small businesses should assume cloud solutions are the default until proven otherwise. The lower cost and maintenance required to use an always-available, pay-as-you-go service is very important for small businesses where cash cycles change often.
The important thing is to make sure you are not running on autopilot. You’ll need triggers to reevaluate cloud spending at least once a quarter.
Trevor Ewen
COO, QBench
Improving Data Accessibility via Cloud
One way small businesses can benefit from cloud-based solutions is by making data, which will be significantly more accessible, consistent between users for more effective, streamlined workforce endeavors.
By having a standardized system or solution for specific needs of one’s small company, data becomes significantly more accessible, and the power to have fewer employees producing more results and effective performances becomes that much more recurring. For example, one’s company could potentially decide to use Google Drive or Dropbox for file storage, and then, as a bonus, having a registered catalog for these standardized systems or solutions to improve on data security will go a long way.
Because the employees are not engaging in the time-consuming task of attempting to find where certain data is, which they would know due to cloud-based solutions, less time is being misused, and performance is being streamlined.
Zoe Akinbodunse
Founder, Polywork
Utilizing Cloud for Business Scalability
With traditional on-premises systems, scaling up or down often involves significant upfront costs and time-consuming hardware upgrades. Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, offer the flexibility to adapt to changing business needs without the burden of substantial investments.
For example, a small e-commerce business may experience fluctuations in website traffic throughout the year, with peak demand during the holiday season. By utilizing cloud-based hosting services, they can easily scale their website’s infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic during peak times and scale it back down when demand subsides.
This scalability ensures the website remains responsive and available without the need for purchasing and maintaining additional physical servers. Cloud-based solutions typically operate on a pay-as-you-go model, allowing small businesses to pay only for the resources and services they actually use.
Michael Gottron
Small Business Owner, Germicidal Maids
Submit Your Answer
Would you like to submit an alternate answer to the question, “How can small businesses benefit from cloud-based solutions? Share one strategy or exmple.”