There’s no denying that the cloud offers businesses of all sizes the tools they need to be more efficient and save money. A quick search online will reveal a plethora of cloud service providers that provide various online services and tools.
The thing is, you need to make sure that you choose the right cloud service provider for your needs. After all, you don’t want to waste money on a service that doesn’t fulfill your requirements! Here’s how you can make the right choice:
Compliance
You want to make sure that your confidential data is in safe hands. These days you often hear reports of how well-known companies have information stolen from them due to cyber attacks.
It’s vital to safeguard data relating to your business, its customers, and its employees. One of the surefire ways of guaranteeing that is by checking the provider’s compliance with certain security requirements.
For instance, SOC 2 audit companies can ensure that cloud providers meet certain information security controls. And you’ve also got other well-known standards like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and so forth.
Don’t just choose a company because they say what you want to hear. Double-check they’ve got their online (and offline) security under control before you invest your time, money, and confidential data with them.
Value for money
Another point to consider is if the service provider you want to use offers excellent value for money. Just because a company charges a premium price for its services doesn’t always equate to a premium service offering!
As with other costs in your business, it’s important to weigh up the cost versus value of any cloud service provider. Otherwise, you may be spending money unnecessarily and reducing your overall profit.
Support
When you subscribe to a cloud service provider, you expect everything to run smoothly. You want to keep your interactions with the provider as limited as possible. After all: your time is rather limited because you’re running a busy business!
Still, if anything ever did go wrong, could you easily contact the cloud service provider concerned? Or is your only way of contact an online ticketing system where responses are seldom guaranteed?
Most cloud service providers offer a 24/7 support system for their customers. So, if your business depends on a cloud service and it stops working, you want to know that it’s easy to speak with someone to get it resolved.
Compatibility
Are you looking to use a cloud service provider’s service that connects with your in-house software setup? If so, it’s vital that you can satisfy yourself of the service’s compatibility with your in-house system.
Before deploying anything, you should do extensive testing on a trial basis. Doing so will allow you to confirm there are no connectivity issues. Nor will your users have any problems conducting their daily work.
Final thoughts
Cloud services offer a whole variety of features and benefits for organizations like yours. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or employ thousands of staff, you should conduct due diligence before signing up with any cloud service provider.