As ‘the cloud’ gets more and more ‘face-time’ with businesses through the media and word-of-mouth (and companies selling ‘the cloud’ exclusively), the perception of potential end-users of ‘the cloud’ is that it is a way to ‘get rid of’ the headaches and associated IT costs in the running of their business.
Computers and networks have become central to the running of nearly all businesses in the past 30 years (do you remember the first time you used a computer at work?), and for small businesses, it’s really only been the last 15 – 20 years. I remember well setting up the first email server and web site for a company I worked at in 1994 – a high-tech firm, no less. I had no experience at the time with mail servers, but I figured it out, and one day soon after, the owner came to me and told me he just fell out of his chair, as he had just received a reply to an email he had sent 15 minutes earlier (thanks NTMail).
My point is simply this – in just a few short years, information technology has become intrinsic to our businesses, and without it, your business is most likely marooned.
So before rushing head-long into ‘cloud-flight’ with your business’s technology, make sure you will be able to withstand outages (ask yourself a bunch of ‘what if’ questions…an hour, a day, 2 days?). And we’re not talking about the same issue as when large geographic areas have all been affected by blackouts or ice-storms. With cloud-outages, your competition is very likely using something different than you are, and isn’t experiencing the same outage as you.
And that’s what it’s all about right there – doing what you do better, faster, and more efficiently than your competition. It’s been that way ever since human kind was able to travel (communicate) faster than the wind, and whoever does that better, wins.
The question therefore becomes – is IT a ‘cost’ or an ‘investment’?
Keeping your IT in good working order is critical. The ‘cloud’ adds a new dimension to how technology can be delivered and used, but the reward (cost savings) needs to be measured against the ‘risk’ (loss of business). It’s too easy for business owners to look at their IT budget and think it could be $X less if they went to ‘the cloud’.
Compared to what? Look at your IT budget in concert with your business goals (revenue, profit, other operation costs etc.), and then decide what you should do. Think about what would happen in your business if you had to without your technology for a few days – could you function? Would you lose business to competitors? How do you measure these things?
I’ll bet if you do, you will realize the ‘cost’ in IT really isn’t that great, and there’s a better than good chance you will realize IT is an investment in your business (i.e. it actually MAKES you money), and perhaps it is a good time to invest more.
As a final anecdote (and the spark that got me writing this post today), I received an email from one of my service providers, who runs their business ‘in the cloud’, and is having trouble delivering some information due to a ‘cloud’ outage…
Finally, a quick observation: [cloud service provider] had fiscal 2009 year revenue of $3.1 billion…and this is their second significant outage this year. Point is, Cloud Computing has its rewards..and its risks. And no one is immune.
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