How Do You Access Your Business Applications?

Significant advances in technology have enabled people to work in increasingly flexible ways and businesses are certainly embracing its potential. Research by Stanford University has found that remote workers are 13% more productive. This coupled with new flexible working rights has increased the popularity of cloud computing, allowing employees access their business applications from any device, anywhere.

The traditional office is changing, encompassing new ways of working to meet the rising demand for flexible workplaces. New research reveals a surge of 800,000 people becoming home workers over the past decade. This has a significant impact on businesses trying to cater for an increasingly mobile workforce.

Traditionally, software applications are installed locally on a server or a desktop client, limiting accessibility and affecting productivity in the long-term. Additionally, it can be time consuming to perform backups and often hard keeping on top of software and security updates. Consequently, cloud computing has grown in popularity as a tool to support modern ways of working and overcoming many traditional software and hardware challenges.

Cloud based software can significantly improve business productivity by providing ‘anytime and anywhere’ access to key business applications. According to Inc Magazine, remote workers are almost twice as likely to work more than 40 hours a week. Subsequently, being able to complete important business tasks via a phone or tablet can be extremely beneficial for business performance. An additional benefit comes from the physical location of the cloud applications data. As it is not stored locally to any device, should that device be stolen, the data will remain secure within the hosted cloud platform.

More and more businesses are switching to the cloud with cloud accounting leading the way. Studies show that 65 per cent of accounting practices are using or planning to use cloud accounting to benefit from 24/7 access to business data. Further to this, an accounting solution in the cloud helps reducing costs and increase ROI. There are no upfront costs and finance professionals can monitor and present accurate information to clients and colleagues in real-time.

A survey by Virgin Media Business predicted that by 2022 nearly 60 per cent of office-based employees will regularly work away from the office. Consequently, cloud-based software is becoming the preferred choice for businesses seeking convenient, affordable and secure ways to access their applications from anywhere.

Learn how cloud-based applications can improve your business productivity.