Harnessing the power of IT is advisable in most business situations, but it comes in particularly useful during the relocation process
Growth occupies space in the minds of most business owners, whether they’re budding young entrepreneurs or established industry veterans. The drive to create something bigger and better is often what sparks the desire to launch a company in the first place.
While the digital revolution is making it a little easier for staff to operate away from the office confines, real growth will always require physical expansion – especially when the focus is on selling products rather than services. Moving from one building to another can be difficult for even the most organised of organisations, though. For some businesses, the daunting prospect can be enough to halt growth altogether, but this doesn’t have to be the way.
New technologies are helping companies all over the world to find, secure and move to premises that better suit their own needs. For the final part of this process at least, the cloud is proving extremely useful.
The cloud offers many things to the modern business, but many of the benefits link directly back to flexibility. When the technology is used properly, organisations are left with more freedom to adapt to their own success and their ever-changing surroundings. Scalability is obviously a big plus-point here – growth and contraction instantly become easier and more cost-effective.
Without the cloud, businesses are required to invest in and build their own IT infrastructure, then develop it as needs change. When the time comes to physically move, all of the costly equipment must be uprooted and reconfigured once in the new location. Not only does this take time and expertise, it’s enough to cause severe disruption for any enterprise.
When the core elements of a business are powered by and stored using the web, however, the only equipment necessary will be computers and a reliable broadband connection – both of which require minimal time and effort to move and set-up, or may even be provided by a serviced office solution.
The increasing prominence of mobile technology and bring your own device (BYOD) also come in useful during a switchover, simply because employees can continue to work for a period of time without having to rely on having physical access to their desks. With applications and data hosted in the cloud, anywhere can be a workplace.
Last, but certainly not least, is security. The protection of data will be a major priority for most CIOs, and having all files stored within on-premises hard drives doesn’t fit in with this on a normal day, let alone during the big move. Knowing that customer and sales information will be untouched, safe and intact once the relocation is complete should help to ensure that stress levels are kept to a minimum.
As is the case with moving house, the idea of relocating to another office space will always be slightly daunting. However, when the right tools are already in place – namely the cloud and BYOD – the process is likely to be a lot smoother.
