The Perfect Storm & Moving To The Cloud
As we look to emerge from the global pandemic that is Covid-19 plenty has changed in the last twelve months and much of it, especially flexible working, is for the greater good of our welfare and of course the environment. Who really needs to be commuting endless hours every day when some balance and a low cost technology refresh could be the key to increased productivity and a happier workforce?
Cloud computing was invented by Joseph Licklider way back in the 1960’s and cloud telephony, otherwise known as hosted voice or VOIP, was patented by Alon Cohen in 1995…some 25 years ago. And yet, the tipping point for adoption of these cloud and hosted services only happened relatively recently and now we are seeing the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in terms of businesses that have made the migration from traditional on-premise voice and data solutions to the ‘as a service’ variant made possible by the cloud.
The benefits of the cloud are various and are both operational and commercial. Operationally cloud services offer much more flexibility in terms of user modus operandi and the cloud can be rapidly deployed, efficiently managed and is easily scaled by the expanding (or contracting) business because you only pay for what you need when you need it. Additionally, this functionality delivered ‘as a service’ tends to be as operational expenditure where you pay as you go rather than capital expenditure and this has appeal to any business trying to protect some cash in these times of uncertainty.
So, the benefits of cloud computing and hosted telephony are beyond compelling, but why has cloud technology taken so long to become the mainstream? This is actually for a number of reasons including the good old ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’, but Covid-19 has changed this and created a perfect storm whereby the pressing need to re-deploy staff to work from home in Lockdown 1.0 coupled with the arrival of enhanced cloud services such as Microsoft TEAMS and reliable hosted telephony platforms means that the superior flexibility and fixed monthly costs are a must have for any progressive business.
The ‘haves’ run agile businesses where employees can work from home, the office, on the move or a combination of all three – often with just a laptop, headset and occasionally an app on a mobile phone. Whilst the ‘have nots’ are still stifled by ageing and inflexible technology incapable of being deployed anywhere but the office and it’s probably costing more to run than the cloud based alternative!
STL – connecting business, connecting people.
