Cloud services can help SMBs reduce costs and improve their profit margins, it has been claimed.
Small and medium-sized business (SMB) leaders are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs, helping to ensure they maximise their profit margins.
The arrival of cloud computing is offering assistance in this regard, by enabling SMBs to do more with technology with less upfront expenditure.
While hosted services are no silver bullet for small firms, they allow SMBs to access more sophisticated tools and applications than would otherwise be available on their budget.
And this ensures the company is able to get more done - in terms of productivity - from a lower cost base.
Writing for Business 2 Community recently, Ali Aldrich suggested that there are two types of cost savings available to SMBs in the cloud.
The first, she claimed, are in terms of hardware and employee time.
"Cloud services lighten the technological load for small businesses and reduce the expenses of owning and maintaining software and hardware," Ms Aldrich noted.
"And eliminating manual tasks by using cloud-based automation tools could free up employees' time so they can create new products and services that generate income for the business."
Savings are also obtainable as a result of the low up-front costs associated with cloud investments, she proposed.
Ms Aldrich said that with online versions, users no longer need to pay for software in a large, upfront fee - they can spread the cost out over a number of months.
Find out more about Microsoft's range of cloud services here.
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