Today work is more than just an office job. It’s a last-minute email sent on the way in; a conference call joined from a business trip; a project handed in from an off-site meeting. Work is everywhere, which is why your team works best when it has easy access to data and applications from as many devices as possible. 

Most growing businesses are realizing the advantages of using cloud-based business applications. They’re using apps like ShareFile and Asana to coordinate their projects and accelerate their workflows. These businesses have seen all the different ways that cloud apps make it easier to collaborate, in addition to how much easier the cloud makes it to use technology. They also know the five big wins of an optimal cloud solution:

Collaboration is easy when you’ve got a handful of people on your team. No need to chase down projects across departments, no waiting around for a swarm of feedback. Business is swift and agile – it’s what makes your team special. But things change when you start growing. New roles, different responsibilities and a growing number of people make it hard to communicate well. Work becomes a bunch of email threads full of buried attachments and conflicting file versions. Conversations and deadlines get harder to track. Teamwork just isn’t seamless anymore. That’s where ShareFile comes in – a cloud-based service for sharing and storing your critical files. It’s a place where everyone can work better together. That’s because it makes it a whole lot easier to do the five ‘Ss’:

Ransomware is the fastest-growing and most pervasive cyber threat in the world. Recently, it has infected the likes of FedEx, Deutsche Bahn and Britain’s National Health Service. The thing is, you don’t need to be a national bank or healthcare provider to fall prey to ransomware – or any other malware. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses are just as likely (if not more) to be attacked. And they’re far less likely to recover from an attack. (We aren’t saying any of this to scare you. We just think you should know what you’re up against.)

Most companies that hope to be in business for the next 10 years have at least considered moving to the cloud. In fact, more than half of them will make their files and emails cloud-based by the end of this year[1]. They’ve seen how the cloud is helping agile companies disrupt markets and grow at breakneck speed. They’ve also heard the stories about enhanced collaboration, IT savings, and the many security benefits the cloud offers. Like many companies, you might be harboring a nagging feeling that you should just get going, but knowing where to start can be the problem. Thankfully, there’s a simple three-step path that many companies use when they move to the cloud. It goes something like this:

When the ransomware attack WannaCry hit last year, it shook the world and brought a number of established institutions to their knees.  If you watched the news unfold thinking, ‘That’ll never happen to my business’, you probably aren’t alone. But you’re also probably wrong. The truth is, the odds aren’t in your favor. Malware attacks like ransomware target businesses of all sizes, at random, and they’re on the rise.  What’s more, growing businesses like yours are both more likely to fall victim to these attacks and less likely to recover quickly.

Few things are harder than growing a business. On the one hand, you’re trying to scale your processes, bring in new talent and serve your customers in more sustainable ways. On the other, you’re trying to hang on to the agility and culture that made your business so special in the first place. It’s a tough balance to find. The thing is, there’s never been a better time to be a growing business. The rise of cloud-based tech (technology managed or accessed over the internet) has changed the game. The cloud has made it incredibly easy to tap into the kinds of powerful, ultra-secure technology that only the biggest businesses used to have. What’s more, this tech is more affordable and easy-to-use than ever before.

Part of the Executive Blog Series About this Series The Information Technology field is evolving at an exponential pace. The number of available paths to navigate this field seems limitless; and it is easy for a business to unintentionally follow one that does not lead to their desired outcome. All too often, businesses rely solely on technologists within the company to steer the company’s IT strategy and convey the benefits to the business decision makers. Although this can be effective in some cases, it frequently leads to the chosen IT solution falling short of desired business outcomes. This blog series aims to mitigate that risk by evaluating some of the complex technological trends and translating them to real-world business impacts that can be easily understood by any business leader. Here is an important question to ponder: what would the impact be to your business if your critical IT systems went down for two days? What about a week? A month? One of the top 5 commonalities among Customers that I speak with is that executive management/ownership is on a different page than the IT team regarding up-time of critical IT systems.