Dont Ignore the Cloud

Just following on from the need to share information with employees, wherever they are, in order for them to do a better job and increase their value to the company they work for, reminded me of the time that I was discussing the benefits of document management with the General Secretary of a large trade union that has been a long term customer of ours for a number of years. They were due to attend the annual TUC conference, and preparations were well under way. Having the right information to hand at such an event is vital as new policies are made and existing ones are either modified or updated.

In order to make their contribution and represent their member’s rights, large amounts of files have to be gathered and boxed so that they can be transported to the conference venue. It transpires that every time the union had to attend these events whether it was the TUC or the Labour Party conference, a lorry load of files have to be transported to the venue just in case they need to be referred to. Obviously this is an expensive exercise not to mention the logistics required to accomplish the task and the resulting risks in transporting large amounts of corporate information. My argument was that if the documents were held electronically, this expense and the resulting security risk could quite easily be circumvented by accessing their document management system remotely and viewing, and if necessary printing the information they required in order to achieve their objectives.

Since that time and with the advent of Cloud technologies such a change in working procedures would be even easier and viable. True many may feel that a cloud based solution is still in its infancy and that there many questions yet to be answered however, as I read recently, like a toddler, it may not be fully stable but it has bags of potential, and that’s the point, interest in using the cloud and SaaS is rapidly gaining momentum and it is and will have a massive impact on IT, IT support and the way that we work and do business. So the answer is, in my mind, don’t ignore it. Keep abreast of the developments and test the water to feel the benefits for yourself.