How many businesses in the 21st century have employees that work solely from the corporate office with direct access to enterprise solutions unencumbered by VPNs, multiple logins and slow connection speeds? By now you have glanced around your office and found that while the individuals who keep the lights on are there, I am guessing a fair number of sales personnel and other staff are traveling or simply working from home.
Many companies are moving to a virtual workforce. In fact, according to a survey by GigaOm Pro in March of 2011, on average, 34% of workers work remotely.
This change in organizational structure allows companies to decrease infrastructure cost.
Think of the advantages of a cloud-based solution from a user’s perspective. They can now access their work from anywhere. They can sign in simply using a browser – no need to ensure you have your laptop with the specific VPN download or firewalls set up. You can literally log in anywhere you have access to the internet whether that is your phone, laptop, tablet, etc.
This week we heard one of the most compelling stories about the usefulness of having an organization run its business in the cloud. We received a message from one of our customers, the president of the organization in fact. He was excited. Now I know what you are thinking, an exec excited about software, but it really happened. Why was he excited? He had been traveling and what work would have normally had to wait until he arrived back at the office, he could now do from the plane while sitting at 30,000 feet. Instead of being behind from traveling and trying to catch up, he approved the invoices for his customers for the month while connected to the wifi on the plane.
As the virtual workforce increases so do the solutions that are available in the cloud. It is no longer just for a traveling sales force. Organizations can run their entire business from the cloud including Order Fulfillment, Procurement and Inventory Management , Accounting and HR . The Cloud is ready for business, but the questions are “Can your business really compete without a change? Are you ready to operate at 30,000 feet?”
