SME cloud adoption on the rise
Cloud computing adoption among small and medium sized enterprises has risen by 15 per cent over the past year, new research has found.
According to a survey by BT Business and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) undertaken in April, seven in 10 (69 cent) of SMEs are currently using cloud-based applications. Furthermore, more than half (53 per cent) of those using cloud applications said that the cloud is now critical to effective remote working.
Indeed, the consensus among the 319 SME decision-makers quizzed was that remote working and employee flexibility was becoming increasingly important, thus playing a major role with the organisations' IT strategies. The vast majority (91 per cent) of respondents revealed that they have at least one employee who works from home, while a fifth (19 per cent) said that at least half of their employees work somewhere other than their main office.
In terms of enabling mobile working, the respondents said that Wi-Fi access when out of the office (64 per cent), remote access to company data (56 per cent) and fibre-optic broadband (33 per cent) are seen as critical requirements.
When discussing the impact of different technologies, more than two thirds (68 per cent) of respondents said that smartphones were causing the biggest changes to their working practices in the last 12 months, followed by the quality of their Wi-Fi (54 per cent) and cloud computing (42 per cent).
Dr Adam Marshall, executive director of policy and external affairs at the BCC, commented: "Cloud and mobile technologies are becoming increasingly important as firms expand into new markets and explore new ways of working – especially overseas. It is encouraging to see that so many British firms are adapting their working practices to take advantage of these developments."
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