Transitioning to cloud computing can seem daunting and labour intensive to small and medium enterprise (SME) owners but the process may be easier than one thinks and reduce operating costs in the long-term.
A panel of experts in the field of digital business operations discussed the benefits of cloud migration for SMEs at the Australian Information Industry Association’s (AIIA) Pacific Islands Digital Capability Uplift Program held at GPH, Suva earlier this week.
Senior director of policy at Salesforce Sassoon Grigorian said, “One thing I’ve noticed with SMEs; there’s always that hesitancy among SMEs thinking that they need an IT expert to adopt some of these platforms. That’s not necessarily the case.
“With these platforms they have continual updates, the best of security, you can make some level of customizations as required, but what we’ve noticed with SMEs is the big advantage by using cloud platforms is that you broaden your market. So you’re not only looking at your own market now domestically, you can sell to anywhere around the world,” Mr Grigorian added.
Head of government affairs for Australia and New Zealand at SAP, one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, Ramah Sakul emphasised the safety and security of data when a business is run through a cloud service.
“I’d go a step further and say I think it’s imperative that they’re on the cloud. Think about cyber threats. “As a small business you don’t have time to worry about managing your cyber security and software. If you’re on a cloud based platform, you don’t have to worry about that,” Mr Sakul said.
Amazon Web Services country manager New Zealand, Tim Dacombe-Bird said he’s seen incredible success with SMEs taking advantage of cloud computing services.
