It is no secret that small businesses have been turning to the cloud in order to save costs, improve efficiency and be kinder to the environment.
Eduard Meelhuysen, vice president Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA), of Netskope, a cloud-based securities company says: “The cloud has been one of the biggest enablers of mobile working to date, but it has also created new security challenges. People love cloud tools such as Google Apps, Dropbox and Evernote because they enable collaboration and mobility, but the business is left figuring out how to deliver these securely to avoid compliance issues or a data breach. Ignoring or blocking cloud apps isn’t an option – like it or not, your employees are going to find a way. Cloud and mobile work styles are the new normal.”
Cloud technology enables small businesses to free up administrative tasks like filing and printing out documents and essential tasks like storing and sharing datac, resulting in benefits for the environment.
Mukesh Shah, head of outsourcing chartered accountants, HW Fisher & Company, says: “Switching to a cloud-based book-keeping system like Quickbooks Online allows you to cut down on paper consumption by drastically reducing the need for hard copies. In many cases, you’ll be able to migrate everything online and eradicate the need for paper files entirely - good for your bottom line, and good for trees.”
Shah adds: “Instead of running your own servers, the cloud stores data in centralised locations, which are not only incredibly well protected, but also cut down the carbon emissions per user. These big data centres are designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and work at a far better capacity than individual servers.”
Data centres themselves have been making steps to become more eco-friendly using renewable electricity as a power source. Iceland-based GreenQloud uses hydropower and geothermal energy to run its two data centres. Small businesses have increasingly been turning to companies like GreenQloud to manage their computers and data storage taking the hassle of out doing it themselves. The number of data centres are set to climb with the growth of cloud computing.
According to research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) around 78% of UK organisations have formally adopted at least one cloud-based service. The research, conducted in June 2014, polling 250 senior IT and business decision-makers, indicated a 9-point increase or 15% growth over the last research project conducted in September 2013. This suggests an annualised growth rate of nearer 20% by the end of September 2014. Since the first research was conducted in 2010, UK cloud adoption has grown by 61.5%.
Cloud-based software is much more widely available, with products such as Microsoft Office 365 from O2 enabling businesses to set up and run a mobile operations unit from almost any location, boosting efficiency and capitalising on opportunities as they emerge.
Alex Hilton, chief executive officer of the Cloud Industry Forum believes that cloud gives small businesses a competitive advantage due to more flexible working and IT services: “Overall satisfaction rates for cloud remain high, with 89% reporting satisfaction with their use of cloud services. This no doubt owes a large part to the fact that cloud services are helping businesses meet their desired objectives and are offering users tangible benefits, bringing new flexibility to the IT estate.”
Andy G Brown, Managing Director of Advanced 365 SME division (part of Advanced Business Solutions, a company which provides integrated business applications and services for the public, private and third sectors) says a number of their clients have wholly switched to the cloud. One of them is a solicitor’s practice which employs a network of 200 solicitors virtually – it is a virtual solicitors’ practice.
Advanced Business Solutions, at the moment have around 1,000 customers which use their host exchange environment and 10,000 individuals. Types of businesses they work with include charities, solicitors and other companies in the legal sector. Brown says by using the cloud businesses are cutting down their paper usage, minimising their use of electricity, thus reducing their company’s carbon emissions.
There is no question that the cloud is here to stay. Offering small businesses, flexibility through various Microsoft products eg Office 365, IT security to a certain extent and reduced costs - with businesses able to source IT services on-demand according to need (with Cloud services) there is less of a requirement for capital expenditure and easier upgrades via the Cloud vendor as well as being a greener workplace option.
In the future, service providers could come under increasing pressure from their customers to reduce their carbon footprint. The European Union are keen to cut 20% of its energy use (compared to 2005 levels) by 2020. In the UK, the government has also pressed for mandatory carbon reporting for businesses, which will no doubt put pressure on small and larger corporations to take up cloud-based sustainability services.
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with E.ON, sponsor of the Efficiency hub.
