10 ways companies can effectively use cloud technology to grow

While cloud technology may seem new to some, it is quickly taking over the way companies are sharing and storing their information. As technological capabilities increase, companies will have more cloud computing options available than ever before.

To find out how to best use cloud technology to impact company growth, we asked a panel of entrepreneurs from YEC the following question:

Q. What is one specific way to effectively use cloud technology to encourage growth? Why does this approach work?

Here’s what they said:

1. Increase productivity

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Cloud technology helps increase productivity because employees are able to take their work with them and work when they feel most productive. Many cloud-based software companies have phone apps that make it convenient to work on the go and never miss a client’s sales inquiry. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

2. Save on IT needs

We do not have any IT support personnel. We use Google Apps for Business and adding new team members and removing them when the exit can be done in a few seconds. Also, transfering the docs from an exiting employee to an existing employee is a matter of a checkbox. It has amazing security features that make it easy to wipe the device to disable access. You pay per user, and set up to scale. – Shilpi Sharma, Kvantum Inc.

3. Help expand DevOps

Cloud infrastructure isn’t just a faster way to deploy servers: It ushered in a revolution in infrastructure management and development methodology. DevOps, which combines development and infrastructure operations, is only possible because of the cloud and the way it empowers businesses to scale quickly, get code into production more often and iterate at a greater velocity. – Justin Blanchard, ServerMania

4. Automate tasks and offload IT chores

Cloud technology is great for small businesses. It allows you to automate certain tasks like email marketing, project management and routine tasks. It also allows you to set up quickly and easily email, document storage, backups and some marketing initiatives, too. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

5. Improve team communications

Cloud technology is perfectly suited for email, storage and office applications. Cloud-based email allows everyone to view their account no matter where they are. Online office applications like Microsoft Word or Google Docs allow team members to work in real-time on documents. Storage software like Google Drive and Dropbox allow for a main central reservoir for all company documents. – Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance

6. Gain flexibility

If you properly embrace having a flexible workforce, it will allow your company to have more growth opportunity. As long as your staff manages their time effectively than giving that same degree of freedom to staff will result in enhanced work and performance. – Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting

7. Save money

You need to save money where you can when growing a business and cloud technology can do that for you. There are a ton of free cloud technologies that you can use for your business, such as Google Docs and Google Sheets, for example. Instead of spending money on expensive cloud technology, you can use free tools to allow your team to work together, save data, capture your ideas and so on. – Blair Williams, MemberPress

8. Enable remote work

Cloud technology lets you hire employees from all over the continent or globe. This can be used as a growth hack for savvy businesses that want to hire top performers. Many top performers want to work remotely these days and it’s been shown that companies that offer remote work retain their employees longer than those that don’t. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

9. Expand your market

Use cloud technology to expand your market and geography. Your employees no longer have to work from a central location, instead they can work remotely without missing a beat. The ability to work remotely helps make expansion easier and limits the downtime associated with travel. Plus, cloud technology drastically reduces the investment costs for setting up operations in a new location. – Matthew Podolsky, Florida Law Advisers, P.A.

10. Improve scalability

It comes down to scalability. That’s the whole point of cloud so you don’t have to worry about upgrading or hardware limitations. Now cloud allows companies to scale without worry that they are going to scale too quickly or they are going to run out of resources. You can avoid all that by utilizing cloud. – Cody McLain, SupportNinja