Cloud “Essential” For Workforce Flexibility In SMEs

Small to medium sized enterprise (SMEs) must hardness their employees’ enthusiasm towards the cloud to drive productivity, new research has said.

Conducted by workforce management firm Kronos, the CloudReady Report surveyed workers in a number of SMEs and claims it found them to be “cloud-savvy” and widely aware of the benefits of cloud computing.

According to the research, cloud usage is already pervasive, with an extensive use of cloud applications amongst workers and a desire to integrate cloud into the everyday activities and processes that underpin business productivity.

Of those polled, 64% said cloud applications play an important role in supporting their day-to-day work and 83% said that given the opportunity, they would prefer to use cloud applications over on premise solutions.

Eight in ten participants expect the trend of people using cloud apps for work to increase over the next two years and on average workers use six different cloud applications in any given month.

“Currently workers are freestyling with cloud apps and derive real value from the technology when speed, simplicity and security are all addressed,” claimed Kronos UK general manager Brenda Morris.

“It’s now essential that more SMBs look at how harnessing the cloud can not only transform productivity, but also deliver a platform for them to compete in an increasingly competitive environment,” she added.

The Time Is Right

The CloudReady Report also claims that the time is right for cloud deployment because research indicates organisations would benefit by reviewing policies about deployment of cloud solutions to ensure they are fully utilising the assets and solutions at their disposal.

Less than half of workers surveyed said that their organisation has a definitive cloud application control and use policy and just 21% say the board is driving cloud adoption, 34% believe it comes from the IT department and 31% say the workers drive cloud adoption.

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