If your company still vouches for on-premise software, you’re lagging behind. And, let’s put it bluntly, you’re losing money, time, sweat, and tears. Here is why.
Fewer costs
Even though on-premise solutions may seem cheaper than a software’s cloud version at first glance due to the recurrence of price, there are many hidden fees that you don’t see upfront while deploying new software on your own servers.
The cost of mobilizing your team for updates, project management, being left behind in terms of new technologies because of the time it takes to proceed to updates, servers’ maintenance, and technical glitches are only part of what makes up for the total cost of ownership. We don’t even mention the risk of losing data and the cost of disaster recovery that relies upon your shoulders only.
Flexibility
Needless to say that, in these troubled times of the coronavirus crisis, flexibility has become paramount. Not that it wasn’t before, but it suddenly jumped from mid-term possibility to number one priority the day governments around the world declared people would have to work from home — or not at all.
Accessing your software in the cloud allows more than the mobility and flexibility of your workers. It also enables data and costs’ flexibility. You no longer need an extra server? Don’t pay for it this month! You want to migrate part of your data across the Atlantic? Let someone else handle the process for you. It’s their job, they do it better, faster, and cheaper than if you had to mobilize your own IT team to do it.
Collaboration
Working from home also affects teamwork. Your staff may need to access their software and data from home, but they also need to share these with other team members. They might need to show information, share it, sometimes even edit it together simultaneously and in real-time. Things they couldn’t easily do with an on-premise solution.
Automatic updates
If you buy from a solid, reliable, and serious software provider, you would expect frequent updates. The times of yearly updates are long gone. Nowadays, bug fixing and new releases are monthly, if not weekly routines we grew accustomed to. Don’t wait till it’s 2 years later and your employees don’t even recognize the tool when updated. You’ll save precious time and money by taking the cloud train right now.
There is only one valid reason to say no to the cloud: law. Some companies working with the Ministry of Defense for instance are legally not allowed to share their data with a cloud service or software provider. Not that storing data on the cloud is more or less secure (though arguably more secure), they’re just not allowed to.
Ten years ago remote access through a VPN was an exception. Nowadays, it’s common practice.
In ten years from now even the most security sensitive companies will have any objection to software in the cloud.
So, where do you stand: in the past or ready for the future?