Polish entrepreneurs are becoming bolder and more effectively utilize a virtual working environment and advanced technology delivered in an easy way in the form of online services in their activities. Cloud computing solutions are the answer to the needs of small businesses in the SME sector, which from now on can benefit from the tools generally reserved for larger clients with a robust IT infrastructure, at the same time enjoying low operating costs. This means a significant improvement of performance of their work, an opportunity to optimize costs, as well as to run business regardless of where exactly they live.
The offices in the classical sense – with employees sitting at their desks in the noise of constantly ringing phones – are moving past thanks to new information and communication technologies. The development of IT services has raised comfort of working environment, as well as the efficiency of employees who manage their time better. All this allows companies to better exploit the potential of employees to meet their business objectives.
“Entrepreneurship is the key to the development of societies” – said Ilona Tomaszewska, responsible for the contacts of the Polish branch of Microsoft with the sector of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). – “Therefore it is important to provide entrepreneurs with access to the tools that will support them in running their companies while allowing them to fully concentrate on making money. Such tools are the IT services from the cloud that can streamline workflow, group work and contacts with customers, and at the same time are not associated with incurring high investment costs, laborious and time-consuming implementation and maintainance of the IT infrastructure, because they are available online, and a client bears costs only for what he actually uses.”
Polish SMEs more and more use solutions based on cloud computing. This happens for several reasons. First of all technologies available in the form of services allow you to respond quickly to rapidly changing market environment, that is to be more flexible. Secondly, the online services increase efficiency while being cost-effective. Because of these facts IT services from the cloud are an alternative to costly IT projects and maintaining own IT infrastructure, freeing up resources and funds that can be transferred to other purposes.
“We got convinced to implementation of online services in our company by an analysis that has been done for us by our partner Fild.NET. We have been cooperating with this company for a long time in the provision and operation of IT solutions and we relay on their opinion in this regard entirely” – said Dariusz Milczarek, CEO of Sandler Training, which operates in the training industry, offering innovative training in the area of sales skills and sales management. – “The analysis has showed that we can significantly reduce IT costs in our organization and utilize the most advanced solutions offered by Microsoft. Thanks to the decision to implement the online services we have received access to all services required by us, without the cost of investment in fixed assets, equipment and software. In addition, we have not needed to incur the costs necessary to build technical competence to be able to manage this environment, so we can invest available resources in the development of our core business.”
Up to now it was necessary to spend a lot of money on infrastructure to set up a business. Now you can reduce these costs to just purchasing computers with legally installed an operating system and a web browser, subscribing to the Internet domain and Internet access. All the rest, that is, software and servers, may be available as online services. In this way, entrepreneurs can focus on running their own business, and Internet service providers take upon themself to ensure the smooth operation and availability of such a functioning infrastructure and applications.
“I think online solutions are the vey close future. We prepare ourselves for offering some of our services in a similar manner. It is enough to simply get rid of the psychological barrier of fear, and each successive step in using this type of service allows us to see the advantages and achieve real benefits “ – adds Dariusz Milczarek.
IT services available in the form of cloud computing are also linked to another benefit for the entrepreneurs, which is the ability to effectively manage the company from anywhere. With cloud computing businesses and employees have access to critical business data and documents via a web browser and a Windows Phone 7. With these tools people can participate in strategic meetings being physically hundreds of miles from company headquarters. The same applies to working in a group, because the cloud allows you to work on documents of several people simultaneously, each of which may be in another place.
“Time is money, entrepreneurs know it best, especially these ones who missed the unique business opportunities because they do not manage to prepare their bids” – said Ilona Tomaszewska. – “Cloud computing makes time management much easier and deadlines cease to be a problem. At the same time the online services reduce the response time to changing business market conditions.”