There’s so much to think about during this era of COVID-19 shutdowns: meeting payroll, generating revenue, tapping into government stimulus funding … not to mention homeschooling the kids and not going insane. The first instinct a lot of business owners have is to freeze spending, and that makes sense—for most things.
But there are still essentials that every business needs, and one of them is giving employees the ability to work together from wherever they are, mostly at home right now. Spending a little money on remote working capabilities and technologies that enable collaboration shouldn’t be part of a spending freeze.
Companies that want to succeed during shutdowns and thrive afterward need to let multiple employees work in the same application, such as QuickBooks Desktop, at the same time. And business owners need to outsource maintenance and updates to a third party so that they can concentrate on everything else they have going on, which is a lot.
Businesses can try the cloud with little investment, no long-term commitment and no disruption
If anything, a global pandemic represents the best time to give the cloud a try. Why?
- Remote work is obviously more important than it has ever been, and there’s no better way to guarantee a secure, collaborative working environment than by running applications in the cloud.
- Nobody knows when shutdowns will end–or whether they’ll have to return after the economy does open back up, as some experts are predicting they will. Struggling to work via email for months or longer is not a sustainable plan for small businesses.
- With month-to-month payments starting at less than $2 per day and no long-term contracts required, businesses can try cloud services inexpensively and virtually risk-free. Companies that experience value can stay in the cloud for the duration of the shutdowns or longer. Others can back out having spent very little money.
- Getting into the cloud requires no hassle whatsoever. Implementation generally takes about an hour, with no disruption to the business and no reason for anybody to leave home. It’s all remote, quick and simple.
The cloud provides small businesses with something close to business as usual
There are benefits to the cloud that go beyond collaboration and outsourcing. One is security, which is becoming more and more critical as would-be data thieves try to capitalize on panic related to the coronavirus to launch devastating attacks on small businesses. There’s also 24/7 support and automatic backup of critical files.
But more than anything right now, moving to the cloud gives small businesses the assurance of being able to replicate something close to business as usual during an unusual time. And with so little risk and no commitment or disruption involved up front, now is the best time to give the cloud a try.