Cloud Cappuccino: Why SMB’s Should Think Cloud Computing

An Entrepreneurial Approach To Emerging Tech

For any small or midsize business owner, the costs of doing business are every bit as important as the revenues created. With sometimes-limited buying power, it has to be this way because small upticks in volume rarely yield great decreases in cost.

Over the past decade, technology has been as disruptive as ever to the SMB landscape. Social media, digital marketing, Big Data, and other emerging trends have brought new capabilities to business while shifting the investment in many cases from capex to opex.

Another rapidly emerging trend that is radically changing the cost of doing business for small companies is Cloud Computing. Cloud is a “Newish” technology that has actually been part of most people’s every day life for some time, however, only recently has it become highly disruptive to business.

While cloud technology has created software packages that can web enable everything from your phone to your accounting system, the greatest shift that may be underway is the shift from big one time expenditures to ongoing operational costs that can scale up and down as business needs require.

Running Your Small Business For The Price Of A Daily Dose of Caffeine

In the old (traditional) way of thinking, businesses would make massive investments in technology. If they needed a server, software or other technology it was going to be looked at as a purchase, use and depreciate model.

For some businesses, this worked when cash flow was strong and the returns were measurable. They could depreciate over several years and use the technology without taking a giant hit to their bottom line.

This model was highly dependent upon the investment being consistently used for 5, 7 or even 10 years.

Now with software being innovated on a daily basis and server requirements changing faster than your Twitter stream, the idea of purchasing any technology that can be expensed and used on demand seems almost silly.

Data center, servers, applications and software are now bundled and available to run at precisely the size of your business. If your needs grow, it’s a call or click away to get the support you need. If it shrinks (and let’s hope not) It is just as easy; often times without any long-term contracts or agreements. It’s like a dream come true for entrepreneurs because they pay for only what they need which may be little more than the price of a fancy cup of coffee.

In this short video (Video 2) we show an interview featuring Eric Saint-Marc (IBM Enterprise Architect), Dan Newman (Millennialceo.com), and Olivier Blanchard (Brand Builder). For more videos from this interview click here (Link to video series to see the entire interview)

This post was brought to you by IBM for Midsize Business and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit  IBM’s Midsize Insider. Dedicated to providing businesses with expertise, solutions and tools that are specific to small and midsized companies, the Midsize Business program provides businesses with the materials and knowledge they need to become engines of a smarter planet.