The ability to scale quickly is being driven by a number of factors, the most common being the adoption of cloud based services to provide flexibility. The Small and Medium Business (SMB) market has particularly fuelled the development of the many and varied types of cloud based business support. In this market, cloud services are expected to grow by 35% annually until 2021.
Additional scalability factors include the high usage of mobile devices, flexible work practices and the growing demand for web and mobile applications. Each of these factors has driven change. So why cloud technology? How can it help your business to scale and survive the turbulent environment?
1. Offsite and secure
A main feature of cloud technology is that information is stored away from the business premise. This has a number of key benefits.
As well as freeing up space it also centralises information for staff to access freely and remotely. Using customer contact communications as an example, the use of cloud technology streamlines the communications process because all staff can access the same decentralised database and can see what has been said, even if they aren’t in a common location. Having one point of information reduces the chances of human error when a business scales up, and ensures all messaging is consistent and is presented with a similar voice.
2. Unpredictability of business and seasonal disruption
For some businesses, key planning issues may be seasonal change and volatile sales cycles. In these instances new cloud technology enables scalability and flexibility.
Specifically for contact centres, the cloud technology makes it easy for call agents to be quickly added and removed when required. This simple flexibility can reap strong rewards for business owners, as they can quickly adapt to the demands of the business.
3. Pay as you go model
As cloud technology is more adaptable and doesn’t require the structure of hardware, providers can be more fluid with the payment structure and can focus on a continuity model. Traditional call centres generally require a 12 month contract of upfront licences. In contrast, the pay as you go model is driven by the flexibility and scalability of cloud technology. As a result, a pay as you go pricing structure can help to ensure maximum returns at the lowest possible cost.
4. Fast to deploy
When a business needs to scale, it generally needs to happen yesterday. This is where cloud based businesses come into their own. Because there is no hardware, businesses centric services can be implemented in weeks, not months (and for a fraction of the cost).
By having a business that can be scaled easily, it allows for a business to be fluid and adapt to the constantly changing business environment.