The small and medium sized business landscape is changing…and changing far faster than expected due to the adoption of internet technologies, aka, The Cloud. Although most of us believe this is a new technology trend, cloud technologies have been around since 1997 when Yahoo first introduced their web email application, Yahoo Mail to the public. The growth of the cloud & computing is expected to create 2.4 million jobs in the next four years in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to Cloudtweaks.com. The prediction comes from a report released by IT company, EMC and a United Kingdom think tank.

Welcome to the information age!

The internet has led to a new age in business…the information age and the birth of the information worker. Today we access and are exposed to more information in one day than a person in 1890 was exposed to in his/her entire life. As Americans, we are exposed to the equivalent of 200 newspapers every day worth of information. This has grown 600 times since 1986 when the internet first began transmitting information over the world wide web. In 1993, it was estimated that the internet carried only one percent of the information flowing through existing telecommunications channels. By 2007 the internet is estimated to account for ninety-seven percent of all telecommunications information. This is why more and more companies are flocking to the internet to get and keep more business.

So how does this affect my business bottom line?

What this does is accelerate the learning process and in response the evolution of business. The worker of the modern age, and well into the foreseeable future, will be the information worker. That is a person who doesn’t necessarily have a tremendous amount of experience, but has the tools and know-how to get and assimilate more information than their coworkers. With the economic slowdown, globalization and other pressures forcing small and medium sized businesses to innovate and collaborate with their teams more effectively to stay competitive (with the right tools), the information worker will be able to get and use more information than their once more experienced more qualified predecessors. The new worker won’t be the most qualified or knowledgeable, but the one that is able to assimilate the massive amount of information that will be thrust upon them in this new age. Companies can adopt cloud technologies or Hybrid Cloud technologies to provide a more user friendly environment for their information worker centric staff. Whereas three to four years ago, these type of environments were only reserved for enterprise organizations.

My Staff… What should I expect?

The eco-boomers are here.  They are tech savvy and are loyal to themselves, not your company. They are more likely to switch jobs every 1-3 years than any other generation before them. What does this tell us…invest in your onboarding and training process, automate and streamline everything to insure that you don’t spend a moment more on training new staff members than you need to. The eco-boomers are called this because their size rivals the baby bomber generation, their predecessors that fueled the industrial revolution and created companies like Johnson & Johnson, Ford, and GE. This group is entering the workforce at an incredible rate and looking for the tools that they are used to using in their everyday life. They are a generation of gadgets and applications, they are used to sharing on the fly and being mobile and accessible. Our recommendation is, give them what they need to be productive and they will turn into some of the best players on your team, leave them behind or fail to engage them and they will move on and up to a company that can service their instant gratification mentalities.

Related Links

Cloud in 2012: The awkward teenage years are upon us, How to avoid chaos in the cloud, Cloud Computing Provides On-Demand Computing, Consultants in the Cloud, Symantec reveals cloud survey results, Hosting providers aim to challenge cloud leaders, LogMeIn Adds Cloud Service to Top-Selling ‘Ignition’ App, Apple Races to Expand Cloud Services, Microsoft’s New Cloud Strategy: Windows 8 and SkyDrive

Last month Symantec, makers of Norton security products, revealed the results of their 2011 State of the Cloud Survey, which examined how firms are adoption cloud computing. What they found is that less than twenty percent of companies were prepared or extremely prepared for a move to the cloud. This is due to the lack of experience in cloud computing, although research found a high level of interest (71 to 87 percent) in how the cloud could impact their business. This is par for the business course with the adoption of cloud technologies. A lack of understanding of business cloud technologies or a misunderstanding of how secure or accessible information is leads to hesitation or misunderstanding of the technology. Another key factor is a disconnect between the IT department and executive leadership within an organization. How many times have we seen a business decision maker open a business, develop a key business process, then call on the IT department to support a mission critical application that runs the entire business. It seems to end in the IT department, but more times than not, it does not start there.

What Can Cloud Computing Do For My Business?

Cloud computing can lower both OpEx and CapEx costs. The billing model for cloud computing is pay as you go, where a traditional IT environment  would have you over subscribe to resources so you can prepare for an increase or decrease in personnel. A cloud IT environment can purchase only what they need based off the number of users.  This provides cost predictability and tighter budgeting for IT resources.

Going Green?

This is a big advantage over internal IT infrastructure. Hosted environments with shared resources use about 60% less power than distributed models. This leads to less energy consumption as a whole.  In addition, companies may opt to travel less and perform more online meetings with video conferencing to save money and collaborate with customers and vendors more frequently.

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