Cloud Computing Small to Midsized Business Considerations

Concluding our three part look at the continued adoption of cloud computing in 2013, this week’s topic for this week will look at an equally important a consideration: reasons why some businesses are delaying their move to the cloud. While the trend towards operating business continues to be cloud enabled either through a hosted solution or through a SaaS model, some small to midsized businesses still feel some trepidation in looking to the cloud for answers to their business operations. In speaking with Vision33’s certified implementation consultants, there were a few concerns which businesses will typically have answered before moving forward. Read on for a brief summary and explanation of these issues:

Data Security

The most commonly cited concern from businesses that Vision33’s consultants see when implementing cloud-based ERP solution like SAP Business One OnDemand or SAP Business One ByDesign, is the idea that a company is not in control of its data and is really representative of the age old hosting problem. Indeed, many of the web based services used to manage day-to-day functions such as online banking and webmail already make use of cloud based storage and computing services. While it is becoming less and less of an issue as the use of cloud based technologies are more and more becoming commonplace in the business setting it is important to note that because of their greater resources, implementation partners offering cloud based services have access to much more dedicated resources to protecting the data than a small company does. This is the reason why so many businesses have already adopted the cloud because they need to leverage the cost share provided by ERP software solution providers to run their business when their goals surpass their company’s ability to finance their operations.

Functionality Richness

The second most commonly pointed out deterrent is that some businesses have the perception that cloud-based ERP providers are still building out the software functionality of their solutions because of the relatively short amount of time they have had on the market when compared to traditional ERP solutions. However, as mentioned above, cloud-based software solutions have been around for many years unbeknownst to most, and their highly extensible nature ensures that businesses always have access to the latest features as business growth requires it. Additionally, many growing companies simply do not wish to allocate resources to upgrading their on-premise software solution to achieve the necessary functionality needed to expand their operation whereas a cloud-based solution has the added agility to be able to be deployed quickly and cost effectively to support the same level of business functionality because of the cost structure is designed specifically for the small to midsized businesses. Additionally, because of the trend by companies to create an ‘eco-system’ of cloud-based solution providers, there are many other function specific softwares out there such as an ecommerce module that will easily integrate with cloud based ERP, making the scope for the potential features much larger.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks, when we turn our attention back to discussing more business trends for 2013; including next week’s topic - business agility and speed to market.