Running a business was never easy. Even more so nowadays, in times of fast-paced markets, ever-changing demand, and uncertain future. Business owners have to keep up and adapt to the changes. One of the possible tactics for alleviating the pains of starting up a small or medium-sized enterprise is adopting cloud services. But even though it seems like an easy fix and a cost-effective or time-efficient way of taking a business to another level, entrepreneurs have to face some challenges along the way. What kind of problems must be considered, and can Iagon solve them in any way?
The global pandemic was a real game-changer as far as the evolution of the modern work environment is concerned. It turned out that remote working remotely does not have a negative impact on employees’ productivity as long as they are equipped with proper tools. From shared calendars and documents stored online to virtual workspaces, even the most basic cloud tools make it easier for a team to co-operate.
However, the transition seemed much easier for large companies with their IT infrastructures, financial resources, and digital culture. It was not that easy for SMEs where the awareness of cloud services potential is lower. What should small and medium-sized enterprise owners bear in mind when embracing the cloud?
PROBLEMS?
Costs
Switching to cloud services is cost-effective. Companies do not have to spend money on costly IT hardware and software licenses. All they need to provide for an employee is a computer and internet access. Still, sometimes they fall into the trap of not investing enough and end up somewhat limited by the small scope of services. Or they invest too much and waste their funds on services they don’t really need. Some cloud service providers lack flexibility and tend to offer unalterable packages, obliging the customer to pay for storage and computing. But what if the customer only requires one of those services?
Security and Data safety
As information is currently one of the most valuable resources, SMEs have to care about the safety of their data. Is it safe to keep data on-site site? What if someone breaks in and steals the hardware along with the drives containing valuable information. What about fires, floods, and other natural disasters? Cloud storage seems to be the obvious answer but is it perfectly safe? Surely, you’ve heard about attacks on cloud storage giants that resulted in serious data leaks. Some large companies that deal with confidential information on an everyday basis strictly forbid the use of external storage as they don’t consider such solutions to be secure. Losing private and confidential data belonging to an important client can be disastrous for a small or medium-sized company. A business owner has to carefully think about who has access to such data and where the files are stored physically. In some cases, it’s not possible to store data in particular jurisdictions, e.g. outside the UK or EU. Furthermore, companies are bound to comply with data privacy regulations like the GDPR and other regulatory acts.
Implementation and Maintenance
It’s worth noting not all cloud solutions are easy to implement. How many changes have to be introduced before an SME can reap the benefits of cloud adoption? Will they require serious expenses or time-consuming employee training? In certain cases, a company might have to purchase certain equipment. Sometimes a particular version of software is obligatory, but what if it requires up-to-date hardware? All that circles back to one dreaded word - costs.
Flexibility and Scalability
Constantly shifting business dynamics make the world of SMEs anything but stable. Cloud services are perfect for this type of environment as companies can easily generate savings thanks to the pay-as-you-go approach. There is no need for long-term upfront investments. For example, a big data project will require high-performance computing and storage capacity. But what happens when the project’s over and all those resources are no longer required?
SOLUTIONS!
Can any of the potential problems described above be solved by Iagon?
As explained earlier, cloud services help SMEs in reducing operational costs. Iagon’s decentralized storage and computing platforms will push it one step further with competitive and fair prices optimized by the protocol itself. In addition, both services will be offered independently, so companies won’t need to waste their funds on cloud solutions they don’t need. Instead, they could spend it on development, marketing, and other important aspects of running the business. On top of that, SMEs attempting to adopt the cloud and move away from the insufficient IT infrastructure they already own don’t have to go through the hassle of getting rid of all that hardware. They might use it to join Iagon’s shared storage economy as providers, offer their resources (storage space) to other network users, and earn some crypto!
At Iagon, we believe that data security and privacy are paramount. They are the foundation of our concept. Leveraging the potential of the blockchain, we are able to offer secure and reliable storage for any kind of data. By allowing the users to specifically define access privileges and storage locations, we can help SMEs comply with any data privacy regulations. Our innovative sharding algorithm distributes stored data across a vast decentralized network, ensuring that the files are retrievable at any moment. As long as you’re authorized to access them, that is!
Finally, our solution is as easy to implement as it gets. Save your budget for something else than proprietary hardware or software. All your company needs is our user-friendly interface, a computer and an internet connection. The possibility of obtaining new storage space or computing resources at any moment means business owners don’t have to worry about scalability problems. Additionally, although Iagon’s platform works on Cardano, we are planning to reach for interoperability by achieving multi-chain status. This might be an additional incentive for SMEs to embrace our services, as it translates to a possibility of moving assets, data and projects between various blockchains.
Join us!
As Iagon is not a huge, faceless corporation - we identify with SMEs and understand their needs. The team is working hard to make innovative cloud services available to all sorts of enterprises and break the barriers that hold them back. We believe our secure and reliable decentralized platform is the future of the cloud. So if you think your company might benefit from becoming a part of the cloud revolution, feel free to dive into our Whitepaper and learn more about our vision.
