It feels like almost overnight the state of organizations across the country completely flipped on its head. Schools organized remote learning, events were postponed, and businesses quickly adapted to remote work with little to no warning. For some, this switch was relatively seamless, they had equipped their teams with the resources to employ a successful remote work strategy and were able to carry on with business operations immediately. Others needed a complete overhaul of how their office operates, and were scrambling to figure out how to succeed for the foreseeable future, and couldn’t get back up and running for days. For organizations that needed additional time to move to a remote work set up, this could mean days of work lost and a loss in productivity and profit.
The cloud has been a large draw for organizations for years because of its flexibility and benefits for employees. Now, with the swift move towards remote work for the foreseeable future, organizations who were initially hesitant to take advantage of this technology are needing it to complete key tasks.
What is the cloud?
You likely rely on cloud hosting every day, but may not fully understand its capabilities or how it works exactly.
The technical definition of cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing power, database, storage, applications, and other IT resources via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
PiF is an Amazon Web Services partner, which means that the cloud computing services we provide are exclusively through their platform, and we have the tools and expertise to migrate your organization to the cloud.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a secure cloud services platform, offering data storage, computing power, content delivery, and other key functions to help your organization scale and grow. AWS is globally one of the largest providers of cloud services, with over 90% of Fortune 100 companies working with an AWS Partner.
Simplify Access
For any employees, especially remote ones, it’s important to access data quickly. For employees with critical roles that require juggling multiple projects day to day, using cloud hosting can provide them access. The cloud can make accessing and utilizing data simple.
By migrating to the cloud, your employees can easily access the applications they require to complete day-to-day tasks, no matter where they’re located. This spans across departments, job functions, and locations, an AP clerk based in one location can access your ERP just as easily as an Accounting Manager in another.
During a time where many businesses are closing their physical offices, either by choice or under the advisement of local, state, or federal authorities, giving your employees the ability to access these applications can help you maintain business as usual during these unusual times.
Enhance Security
Most organizations don’t have disasters top of mind, it’s a scary thought thinking about the “what ifs” of your business. While you hope that nothing ever happens to your data, it’s better to be prepared in case something does. When emergencies happen, how can you ensure that you don’t lose what’s important to your business?
There are cases where data may be deleted by accident, due to a natural disaster (think fire, flood, nor’easters, hurricanes, or blizzards), or due to ransomware or other malware taking over your on-premise server. Hosting your data and applications on a cloud storage system with automated backups can ensure your data won’t disappear forever.
Small to mid-sized businesses are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. They often have limited resources dedicated to cybersecurity and don’t have systems built to protect them and their data. While these attacks may not be entirely preventable, lessening their impact is possible.
Streamline workflows
For organizational processes that require routing, approvals, and data needing to move from person to person, staying connected through the cloud can promote productivity and help continue to move along those key workflows. By not utilizing cloud computing, systems that ran efficiently in-office on your own network and server can all of a sudden become useless once employees leave the building.
On the cloud, you can rely on those same workflows regardless of where your team is located, meaning the work doesn’t stop and you can complete tasks with the same speed as before.
Why Cloud with Amazon Web Services?
What makes Amazon Web Services stand out from other cloud service providers is their focus on security, flexibility, and usability. AWS gives you the ability to work from any location that has internet access, and with
99.999% reliability, you can be confident that it’s always going to be working when you need it.
AWS is completely customer-obsessed, meaning their entire focus is ensuring the success of you, the customer, not the money you spend. They have the largest cloud partner network in the world, with 90% of Fortune 100 companies working with an AWS Partner like PiF.
To further protect your information, they have data centers in multiple regions, with multi-availability zone replication for high availability and fault tolerance, which means even if one data center fails, you always have others as backup.
Why move to the Cloud right now?
If the past few months have taught us anything, it’s to always prepare for the unpredictable. If your organization could redo your COVID-19 strategy, what would you change? It’s likely that you’d change how you support your remote employees, and ensure that they still can complete their work without being in the office.
Rather than wait for the next emergency and react, why not be proactive and protect your data, team, and business now? Now is the perfect time to migrate to the cloud, PiF can quickly complete an analysis of your needs and help determine the ideal plan for you.
Be prepared for whatever comes your way in the future, and support your organization now.
