Why more and more SMBs are moving to the cloud in 2022

Cloud computing has grown into a vast ecosystem of technologies, products, and services, giving rise to a multi-billion-dollar industry.

“More than ever, customers are coming to us for assistance in addressing their most pressing business challenges, including business model changes, process automation, supply chain resilience, and sustainable operations,” says Pedro Lopes, Group Managing Director, SEIDOR in Africa.

In the past year, cloud spending by SMBs has shot up significantly, according to the annual Flexera State of the Cloud Report. As many as 53% of SMBs surveyed in the report are spending more than $1.2 million annually on the cloud. That's up from 38% last year.

In South Africa, SMBs are making serious investments in the cloud and the ability to setup cloud resources in a multi-tenancy or shared model enables businesses to benefit from the cost-savings realised by sharing infrastructure. This is ideal for workloads that need enterprise-quality computing at a reasonable price. Offloading server room apps and backups/disaster recovery to the cloud is a sweet spot for achieving immediate gains especially for SMBs.

“This means we can manage and monitor multiple systems for numerous customers all in one place. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tenants access multi-tenant applications or services to which they are subscribed. With the central management enabled by multi-tenancy, we can increase scalability, reduce costs and improve security.”

“SEIDOR in Africa is not only seeing the demand for SAP technology continuing to climb, but is also witnessing a wave of ERP modernisation to the cloud as a result of the greater emphasis on digitising and automating mission-critical business processes and core operations,” says Lopes.

“Companies that already use ERP in the business understand the value of implementing cloud and know that they can transition systematically with minimum downtime,” he adds.

“Business One is the go-to SAP Cloud ERP for SMBs because it is a single, affordable solution to manage an entire business – from accounting and financials, purchasing, inventory, sales and customer relationships to reporting and analytics. Our clients know that we will build a cloud ERP roadmap that works for each unique business.

Those that have not yet embraced cloud ERP are noticing the unquestionable benefits and many are wanting to modernise for fear of falling behind their competitors. Others are not sure where to start and what to ask because there is a plethora of offerings, making it confusing, complex and difficult to make a choice. They are adopting a “wait and see” approach.

“The key question SMBs should be asking is why they want to migrate their business systems to the cloud,” says Lopes. The overarching reason is the agility and overall value provided by cloud computing, which enables businesses to stay competitive and innovative.”

Especially now, in post-pandemic hybrid work environments, cloud technology allows users to access files faster, interpret complicated data more easily, and enjoy enhanced security benefits. Cloud computing provides work-from-home employees to access the same technology they have at the office, keeping them productive and collaborative. The cloud also allows companies to trim hefty IT budgets in an uncertain economy.

“One of the biggest advantages our cloud ERP offers is the partnership SAP has with major hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. It means the best solution is available when it comes to security, scalability, rapid deployment, and cost-effective implementation because these hyperscalers, as well as SAP international, have teams of people working around the clock to ensure their solutions are best of breed.

“As an example, SAP provides the services and tools to ensure that a company’s application layer is secured properly after migration to the public cloud. Data stored on the cloud is encrypted, making it safer than other hosting solutions. Business owners need never worry about losing data with cloud technology because of better disaster recovery and business continuity.

“When moving to cloud technology, our clients can prevent data breaches, and better meet regulatory and governance requirements together with seeing significant cost-savings. The access to much-needed insights and analytics in seconds also makes it easier to collaborate, and assess findings for better business decision making,” says Lopes.

SEIDOR in Africa offers affordable innovation for any type of SME as the pay-as-you-go model for their services, allows SMBs to scale up or slim down quickly when needed.

With 80% of companies saying they have experienced operation improvements within the first few months of adopting cloud tech, there’s no denying that the cloud is the way forward for businesses to succeed. Those that don’t make the transition run the risk of being left behind.