The economy is top of mind for everybody at once, and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) aren’t any exception. Inflation has reached a 40-year high, rates of interest proceed to rise, supply chain problems and the growing risk of recession are forcing businesses to stay cautious.
At the identical time, corporations proceed to have difficulties recruiting and retaining employees. Although the job market has began to cool barely, there are still greater than 10 million job openings available within the U.S., and with reduced labor force participation, there aren’t enough applicants to fill them. For this reason, businesses are sometimes understaffed, and attracting and retaining expert employees is usually a challenge.
With all this uncertainty, many small and medium-sized businesses are searching for more predictability on the subject of their expenses. If you do not understand how much it would cost to rent one other worker, renew your lease, purchase supplies or borrow money, determining exactly how much you spend on cloud IT solutions and services becomes a financial necessity.
Gain confidence in uncertain times
If you host your applications in-house, you possibly can expect to get up unexpectedly. When it comes to provide chains, technology costs are rising, making it difficult to acquire the equipment you would like. Inflation increases costs in areas resembling servers and storage. Here’s some silver lining: the present economic climate appears to be accelerating the move to the cloud, with Gartner predicting economic growth will increase by greater than 20% this yr alone. Additionally, Producer Price Index (PPI) data shows a pointy year-over-year increase in host and server prices, up 21% from June 2021 prices. The cloud is usually a source of efficiency, if not outright savings, given note that it avoids depreciation cycles, derailing the phenomenon often known as the “IT roller coaster.”
As IDC noted in a September 2022 report, “many small and medium-sized enterprises do not have deep reserves that will enable them to sustain operations for years in difficult economic times.” That’s why it is important for them to use technology intelligently and concentrate on efficiency, savings, productivity and automation – and fast – to weather today’s economic storms. But what exactly are small and medium-sized businesses combating, given the long list of macroeconomic issues swirling all over the world today? The answer, IDC states, will depend on where the SME is predicated.
“IDC’s recent research on the macroeconomic challenges facing small and medium-sized businesses all over the world, revealed as a part of our BuyerView Cloud Pulse program, shows that while small and medium-sized businesses all over the world face increasing macroeconomic challenges, the particular problems vary significantly in depending on the region.
“Smaller SMEs, given their size, say supply chain issues lead to a lack of IT equipment/materials. This is likely because the smallest SMBs use fewer cloud technologies and rely on more basic and physical IT devices such as laptops, mobile devices, printers and servers. “When we asked about technology improvements and enhancements made by small and medium-sized businesses in the 12 months leading up to the first quarter of 2022 to increase resilience, the results showed that small and medium-sized businesses are lagging behind their enterprise counterparts.”
Attract and retain employees with flexible working models
The work-from-home trend necessitated by Covid-19 has gained popularity, and lots of employees hope to proceed the distant or hybrid work model – perhaps indefinitely. In an ADP survey, 64% of worldwide employees said they were already searching for a brand new job or would consider searching for a brand new job if their employer required them to return to work full time. What does it mean? In an ever-tight labor market, it’s essential to be prepared to supply flexible work options to candidates and employees. Eighty-seven percent of employees whose employers offered “at least some remote work” took advantage of this feature, spending a median of three days every week working remotely.
More and more employers are selecting to work remotely to retain talent and control labor costs. According to recent research, 38% of corporations have seen a rise in distant job offers over the past yr “to keep employees happy and alleviate upward pressure on wages.” An identical percentage said they expect next yr shall be similar.
Choose your IT partner fastidiously
Efficiently managed IT can assist attract and retain employees by supporting seamless distant or hybrid work models. Look for scalable cloud platforms that enable your employees to work from anywhere. Employees are increasingly all for the same user experience, no matter whether or not they work within the office, at home or elsewhere. They may even use multiple monitors when working in distant locations to maximise their productivity and satisfaction. Today, users appreciate and can have24/7 access to the IT support they need – no matter where they decide to work.
If you wish greater cost predictability in your IT, the cloud is the approach to go – but do not forget that not all cloud providers are created equal. Look for a cloud provider that hosts your applications and data in a virtualization environment built from the bottom up to make sure complete data protection. SMBs deserve a cloud environment with firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and consistent software patches and updates – all in a physically secure data center.
Simply put, it’s easier to guard data in a single centralized cloud environment than in multiple locations, whether that is end-user laptops or internal file storage services.
Bottom line, let the provider care for things like security and data protection so that you do not have to. You could make running your enterprise your top priority – which probably is not IT – and tackle revenue-generating tasks that can enable you get ahead of a possible economic downturn.