If your business wants to grow and expand, you've got to get your people to your customers. There your sales team and others can grow your business one customer at a time, giving them the service and support that your customers expect from your company and employees.
What business people sometimes don't realize is that the cloud can actually help with that huge task.
Getting your people out of the office where they can get their critical work completed – what an amazing concept!
I started really thinking about this idea after recently reading about "6 Cloud Trends that are Driving Workers Out of the Office" in a blog post on CloudTweaks.com.
The story described how a small 123-person company, Automattic, which hosts servers for WordPress, has its employees spread out over 94 cities in 26 countries, using the cloud and mobile apps to communicate and get their work done.
The cloud trends that are helping Automattic with this metamorphosis, according to the CloudTweaks post, are:
1. Increased availability of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud applications.
2. An explosion in mobile devices capable of accessing these apps.
3. Increased social media use.
4. Pressure on IT departments to reduce budgets.
5. Globalization.
6. Greatly improved user experience.
Those six concepts got me thinking – yes, of course these things are helping Automattic's employees to get their work done wherever they are, but even more importantly, the cloud is making it vastly easier for those workers to go where their customers are located, anytime, anywhere, while having all of their sales tools, information and other resources available at a moment's notice.
Essentially, the cloud can make your employees more customer-focused, and in today's global economy, that is a game-changer.
Certainly lots of sales transactions are made today online or over the phone, but sitting down with a customer who really needs help solving their business problems is still a very critical and even intimate part of your business. That's where bonds are formed, where trust is created, and where business loyalty can still sprout. When your customers need your help the most, that's where true connections are made.
And that's where the cloud can truly enable your business to thrive by giving your employees even greater abilities to respond to your customers.
How so?
Because now with the cloud, your workers can use their cloud-enabled SaaS mobile applications to answer the toughest customer questions from anywhere, at any time, while sitting in a café sharing coffee with a customer in need. At the same time, SaaS can even make it affordable and realistic for specific workers to have access to specialized applications that can help them do their jobs better.
Because now that explosion of mobile devices which are capable of accessing SaaS apps lets your sales force and support staff respond to customers on site with every needed detail at their fingertips. That is huge flexibility, thanks to the cloud.
Because now, by using more cloud-enabled social media in their work, your employees can stay closer to their clients – your customers – to serve and hear them better. The cloud makes it easier for your workers to listen to your customers, too.
Because by using the cloud to maintain your key business applications instead of deploying them internally and then maintaining them, your IT department can work harder, too, to save money and enable increased productivity.
Because the cloud recognizes and embraces the true business globalization that has been developing in the last several decades by providing flexible, agile, process-focused ways of doing business. This allows the cloud to encourage customer-focused innovation, rather than forcing your employees to respond to customers in the same slow, outmoded and old-fashioned ways of the past.
Because the cloud enables your workers, wherever they are, to enjoy a greatly improved user experience as they reach out to customers, making sales and driving positive results for your company. The cloud is making it easier for your workers to be more productive by allowing them to use their creativity in making the deal using every technology that you make available to them.
For businesses of every size, from small to large, these are great growth possibilities.
It's a good thing to keep in mind as you are thinking about how the cloud can affect your business and employees. Don't forget to also consider how the cloud can ultimately bring you even closer to your customers.
Todd R. Weiss is an award-winning technology journalist and freelance writer who worked as a staff reporter for Computerworld.com from 2000 to 2008. Weiss covers enterprise IT from cloud computing to Hadoop to virtualization, enterprise applications such as ERP, CRM and BI, Linux and open source, and more. He spends his spare time working on a book about an unheralded member of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and watching classic Humphrey Bogart movies. You can follow him on Twitter @TechManTalking. You can contact him at toddrweiss@gmail.com
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