After reading "Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2010" by Bob Evans published in Information Week, I started to think about the how his top 10 applies or translates to small business. Why should small business consider moving the cloud critical in 2010 to long-term success . As a small business owner, below is my take, I have condensed down to 3 key areas of opportunity.
Gain a Competitive Advantage in 2010
As a small business, you have the advantage of agility and time to market. Focus on your customers’ needs and offer services before your larger competition. As a small business, typically the owner/CEO is the CIO. You do not have budget for trial and error or sourcing ongoing IT projects that have nothing to do with adding to your bottom line. If you’re looking for areas to cut cost and gain a competitive edge against your competition, moving core IT operations to the cloud should be a priority this year. The move will enable you to achieve the following:
1. Less IT spend, more investment in your business. Spend your budget on process improvement, customer acquisition, and retention; and let someone else worry about IT infrastructure. Implement communication and collaboration solutions that provide rich interaction and improve productivity and process automation to your sales team and customers. For example, improve your website to make purchasing your products or services simpler, provide an easy mechanism for your customers to interact with you and get answers quick.
2. Stay nimble as your business grows. Small businesses should learn from the IT issues of big business, and don't get caught in the weeds. Understand critical business functions that can be moved to the cloud; select a trusted vendor that is stable, secure, and has a solid roadmap. Your customers will appreciate your capability to respond to their needs quickly, accurately, and with flexibility. Besides, it should be easier to integrate strategic process now than when you have tripled in size.
3. Reduce areas of overhead. This is not a fun topic, however as a small business overhead can tip the scales between success or extinction. Cloud technologies offer services agreements and system stability that require less investment IT management.
Vorsite is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner. We provide business solutions supported by Microsoft Cloud Services to small and mid-sized business. Vorsite was founded in 2000; we have successfully on-boarded over 85 businesses to the cloud since 2009.
You can find more information about Business Solutions in the Cloud on http://www.msonlineforbusiness.com
