Innovate or Perish

Innovate or Perish is a very powerful mandate.  Our society is evolving at an ever increasing rate and businesses must to adapt to these changes.  Just a few years ago, we used FedEx to send confidential documents that had to get there the next day.  The next evolution was the fax, which allowed documents to be received in a few minutes.  Then, a few years past as Email became the most efficient medium to deliver documents - immediately.  In just a short capsule of time we migrated from overnight mail to fax to email.  This is just an example of how fast innovation is taking place.

We are now approaching a time where more and more business applications are transitioning to "the cloud".  Business information is available from anywhere - anytime using computers, laptops, tablets, and cell phones.  A few years ago the world wide web was only understood by techies - today, it has become the mainstay of business.  Today, a business must have an Email address and a Web site to be considered legitimate.

The next evolution in technology will be moving applications to "the cloud".  These applications include: Email, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Contact management, CRM Systems, Accounting systems, etc.  Effectively, most applications that currently operate on local (in house) computers will be accessible from anywhere.

Some of the benefits for placing your business data in "the cloud" include: accessibility from anywhere, reduction of hardware, reduction of support staff, integration with different computing devices, data backup and security, updating to new versions, and reliability - to name a few.  As an example, today, every time there is an update of software, it is sent over the Internet and every computing device has to individually update their device.  With cloud computing, the only device that needs to be updated is the server that it resides on (in the cloud) - there are no updates that have to be transferred to each individual unit.  This also keeps everyone on the same platform with the most current version.  For most applications it becomes a transparent conversion and is available to everyone immediately.  This method allows applications to be improved very quickly and eliminates the tedious task of dealing with the inconsistencies that come about with every different computing device.  Applications will evolve at an even faster pace with a much higher level of reliability.

Planning for the Future is what sets a business apart from their competition.  Taking steps now, to improve productivity and efficiencies in your business will pay dividends for many years.  It give you the edge, keeps you ahead of the competition, and improves the return on your investment today.  It sure beats the alternative of trying to sell buggy whips, fax machines, or typewriters.