FEBRUARY 20198survey conducted by leading IT in-dustry players and market re-search firm Longitude Re-search at the beginning of the calendar year, found that nearly 43 per cent of Indian organisations have a fully operational cloud strat-egy for their businesses and an emerging group of businesses that have 70 per cent or more of their applications in the cloud are outper-forming their competitors globally. In many ways, cloud computing has revolu-tionized the way we conduct business online, creating a level playing field for all types and sizes of businesses.When the concept was first introduced, large cor-porations were quick to advocate it, which may have led to the misconception that the technology is best suited for mid-size to large enterprises only. What's in it for SME's? Small businesses have realized that cloud technology is an enabler that facilitates business productivity, mak-ing it a viable option for them to explore cloud tech-nologies that can significantly optimise operations, resources and time. Cloud infrastructure has also made it easier for col-laborative technologies to experience a unified inter-face allowing businesses to access their information virtually, creating a flexible and global way of accessing data any place, any time. It is due to these factors and its awareness, Indian businesses are gradually explor-ing cloud platform, in turn helping India public cloud services revenue to grow 37.5 percent this year to total US$2.5 billion, up from US$1.8 billion in 2017 (according to research firm Gartner).Opening Doors to ProductivityToday, India is second only to China as the largest and fastest-growing cloud services market in the Asia Pacific region. This interest in the cloud is being driven by the increasing need for business innovation and agility, the ability to scale fast in a compet-itive market, along with the govern-ment's Digital India initiative.Indian companies, regardless of their size, are opening up to the com-plexities of the data centre, and willing-ly adopting the cloud. According to a survey by Microsoft India and the Thought Arbitrage Re-search Institute (TARI), the flexibility provided by cloud solutions can enable SMEs to improve cash flows by up to 308 per cent. It also found that 96 per cent of SMEs find a positive impact on their operating expenses with-in two years of cloud use.This is simply because there are several advantages for small businesses to graduate to the cloud: · Zero Installation: Many businesses prefer to op-erate on the cloud because of its ease of use and instal-lation. There is also the added advantage of being inex-pensive, particularly those who are operating on a small budget. This means eliminating the need to invest on hardware and application, as well as bandwidth costs, since your service provider will have them all covered.· Never lose data: System failures and unforeseen disasters are more likely to hit SMEs than large corpo-rates, which highlights their need to protect their data even more. The Cloud not only simplifies the process by allowing your data to automatically update as you work, but it also creates copies of your data off-site where it will be kept safe from any local natural disaster, theft, or malfunction.Ajay is a serial entrepreneur with experience in building and leading successful technology companiesWHY CLOUD TECHNOLOGY IS CRUCIAL FOR INDIAN SMES?By Ajay Adiseshann, Founder & CEO, PayMateAAjay AdiseshannIN MY OPINION
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