Why should small businesses invest in a cloud business phone system

In the past, a business phone system was not a small business priority. But did you know that nearly 65% of consumers prefer to interact with a business over a phone call rather than utilizing a web contact form? As companies rush to find more ways to engage their loyal customers, keeping their contact options flexible and open to customer demands is a critical area that they cannot ignore. In this context, having a business phone number is essential as customers may want to get in touch with you directly for various reasons. Traditional telephonic communication systems have transitioned into their digital avatars. Today VOIP based telecommunication is the backbone of every small business phone system out there.

The latest and most trending internet-enabled telephonic communication infrastructure for today’s digital-savvy small businesses is a cloud business phone system. The trend is attributed to the ROI that cloud business phone systems can provide to small businesses. Cloud business phone systems help companies deliver a seamless experience for customers to get in touch with them. 

Let us explore the top 7 benefits that a small business can enjoy if they switch over to a cloud business phone system:

1. Global access

A telephone system managed in a cloud environment enables businesses to globalize their communication infrastructure. It allows the staff to utilize the business phone for communication from anywhere in the world in just a few clicks. All it takes is a few configuration steps to be done on your cloud phone system. In a matter of minutes, your business phone system will be ready for use in any country you may shift your operating base to or open up new offices. All data related to your contacts, workflow mappings of different departments, or executives can be seamlessly moved to your new work location without any effort.

Read more: 5 Ways an Integrated Cloud Platform is Beneficial for Your Small Business

2. Cost-efficient

As we all know, cloud business phone systems rely on VOIP technology to make phone calls from the internet. Voice is transferred as data packets and not as analog signals found in traditional line-based telephonic infrastructure. Voice services over the internet are relatively inexpensive irrespective of the geographies connected through the line for customer interactions. Availing a cloud business phone system also allows small businesses to avoid hefty license fees as they can opt for economic subscription plans that best suit their needs.

3. Simplified infrastructure

A cloud business phone system doesn’t require enterprises to have physical telecommunication infrastructure components like a PBX box, telephones, and operational lines. Also, they do not require office premises to be modified to lay cables and wires to support a large user base of executives accessing different official phone numbers. The cloud system offers all employees a simple one-click call from their smartphones, and the cloud service provider handles all call routing, network optimization, and traffic management.

Read more: 8 Ways Cloud Automation Significantly Improves Your Legacy IT Operations

4. Flexibility of scale

Small businesses always need technology that can flexibly align with their growth prospects. Cloud telephone systems allow enterprises to seamlessly scale up the number of people who can access the business phone system with just a few clicks and no physical infrastructure additions. They can increase the number of subscribers in their monthly or yearly billing contract signed with a service provider. The same applies if they want to scale down operations as well.

5. Device independence

With a cloud-based business phone system, employees can make calls from any of their devices such as smartphones or laptops or any other work gear and have the recipient receive the call from the official business correspondence number. All call features such as recording, analytics, reporting, etc., can be done on the cloud. Companies can even route incoming calls to an employee’s number to another employee easily in the event of leave or absence.

6. Limitless geographical extension

One of the highlights of using a cloud-based VOIP business phone system is that it gives businesses the freedom to establish a local presence in a country with a business phone system tagged to a local number. They can do it remotely from anywhere globally, thereby empowering businesses to expand their reach to international customers seamlessly.

7. Recovery and security

With a cloud-based business phone system, your business’s entire telephone system has a virtual infrastructure hosted and secured in a cloud environment. In the wake of a natural calamity or a sudden migration of office space to a new city or locality, your business phone system can be up and running from the new area in a matter of seconds.

Download White Paper: The Business Value of InfinCE for Business Owners and Employees

As the world is increasingly transitioning to digital-first interactions, keeping your telecommunication system agile and flexible is vital for sustainable business growth. This is where investing in a cloud business phone system can make a tangible return on your investment. Get in touch with us to see how InfinCE can help create the perfect digital backbone for your small business by bringing all your enterprise applications, telecommunication, and collaboration capabilities under one roof on a SaaS model. 

Reinvent Your Legacy IT Operations with Cloud Automation

Cloud automation tools are capable of making digital transformation realistic compared to legacy IT and software platforms.

Conventional software is usually installed to work on virtual machines (VMs) and desktops. Whereas InfinCE was built in the Cloud and is known for representing the next generation of smart automation platforms that can significantly boost your legacy IT operations.

InfinCE allows businesses to effortlessly automate recurring, manual jobs such as email handling, systems updates, data processing, and documents management. Today, organizations are increasingly embracing cloud applications. However, some businesses are still unconvinced with cloud-based solutions. 

Are you among those organizations that don’t know much about cloud automation’s business benefits and its role in accelerating digital transformation? This post will help you gain a clear picture.

Cloud automation helps companies improve their legacy IT operations

1. Economical cost of ownership

Cloud automation allows you to bypass the maintenance cost, which is preordained when you own hardware. In addition to hardware costs, organizations also need to employ more human resources for installing, troubleshooting, securing, and upgrading the hardware. All these add up to the total cost of ownership. Now, it will be easy for you to understand the cost-effectiveness of cloud automation.

2. Centralized authority

InfinCE’s enterprise cloud platform offers a unified environment for your organization. It helps you organize, control, and audit the automation activity throughout the organization more effectively. You can also easily manage the access rights and multi-layered permissions at the organization, user, object, group, and data levels.

Read more: Top 4 Advantages of Centralized IT Administration for Your Business

3. Security and reliability

According to a report, more than 90% of businesses witnessed a significant security improvement when they adopted cloud automation solutions. InfinCE has the potential of working with both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to offer unmatched cloud-hosting and related services. These organizations provide an abundance of resources strictly for cyber-security compared to a legacy IT department, which comprises physical and network security.

InfinCE offers not only multi-tenant hosting options but also facilitates security with single-tenant hosting plans. It implies that you can own a dedicated, isolated account that manages your data with utmost exclusivity. All data on InfinCE is encrypted in transit and at rest through enterprise-grade security norms. InfinCE has completed HIPAA and SOC 2 tests, audited by a third-party auditor. It indicates that the servers of InfinCE are placed in high-security data centers.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work

4. Low risk and swift execution

InfinCE is capable of setting up a new customer account in no time. Once created, a user needs to sign in using their web browsers and start structuring automation. With the Software as a Service (SaaS) pricing model, any organization can begin development at a reasonable cost and invest further only after achieving success and ROI on automation. This contrasts significantly with in-house installed cloud automation tools, which usually demand substantial cost and time to get started.

5. Orchestration in cloud 

A business process includes numerous departments apart from employees, such as customers, suppliers, contractors, partners, job candidates, and third-party associates. Having a cloud automation tool like InfinCE that offers top-notch orchestration in Cloud, these various parties can easily contribute to the automated workflow by completing necessary forms, signing documents, and uploading files. Such an orchestration in the cloud allows you to easily automate the overall process, not just the steps that occur within your organization’s particular area.

6. Remote management

Usually, the most traditional automation software is installed on PCs, but that is not the case with InfinCE. Using a web browser, you can access InfinCE. This implies that InfinCE is compatible with Macs and PCs and can also be operated with a smartphone, credit to its remarkable responsive design. As today’s employees prefer to work outside the office, your automation software must be capable of keeping up no matter where the employees are or what device they are using.

Read more: 5 Ways an Integrated Cloud Platform is Beneficial for Your Small Business

7. Constant improvement with zero upgrades

Being a cloud platform, InfinCE ensures that a business is continually reaping its latest version’s benefits. You don’t have to install or update the software on your computer manually, and your end-users do not have to wait for upgrades. Moreover, InfinCE releases new features at regular intervals and adds more features with every release, ensuring growth in efficiency for your organization.

8. Cloud automation tools are scalable

Cloud automation platforms are scalable almost in any manner you want them to. For example, if you wish to store large data sets in data tables of InfinCE, you need not concern about increasing hard drive space as InfinCE is rightly equipped to manage that for you. The more departments and users you bring to the platform, the system management actions and centralized governance will minimize friction and manual effort. The SaaS model of InfinCE is designed to surge pricing as a fraction of the value you realize, meaning you always achieve a greater ROI.

Read more: 3 Strong Reasons for Your Business to Embrace Cloud-based IT Services

Final thoughts

To transform your organization digitally, you must implement a cloud automation solution that is economical, offers swift deployment, gets connected easily, and is designed to adjust as you grow. InfinCE’s reliable cloud automation tool makes digital transformation more attainable for your organization and ensures to improve the legacy of IT operations.

Download White Paper: The Business Value of InfinCE for Business Owners and Employees

In the modern business world, automation has turned out to be a boon for organizations as it provides better resource utilization, IT operations, and workload distribution. These are the reasons that today’s enterprises are moving towards cloud automation tools at such a fast pace. If you are also an entrepreneur striving to automate your business operations, the automated solutions of InfinCE can turn out to be advantageous for you. Contact us to learn more. 

How can an integrated cloud platform turn your business competitive?

Across the world, businesses of all sizes are increasingly managing their operations through digital tools such as an integrated cloud platform. The benefits of such a cloud platform extend not just to big businesses but also to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segment where cloud technology has made a significant impact. 

The State of Cloud Adoption Amongst SMEs

SMEs are undoubtedly a major contributor to the global economy. While individually, they would not be a significant job creator, the collective market they open up for both jobs and economic contribution cannot be ignored. As competition increases every year and with pandemics like COVID-19 wrecking entire economies in a matter of months, SMEs must stay focused on delivering maximum value from minimal expenditure. As always, turning to digital transformation will be the key element that brings about a competitive edge to SMEs and helps them serve the large digital-savvy customer base worldwide.

No other technology has made business stronger and more profitable for SMBs as the feat achieved by cloud computing. 59% of small businesses that use the cloud have found to be enjoying more productivity benefits than those who are not on the cloud. Additionally, 82% of small business organizations that moved to the cloud reported that they reduced costs considerably with cloud technology.

Now let’s move back to the initial discussion about the benefits of an integrated cloud platform to manage operations, for a small business. Today, there is no shortage of cloud-based business applications that propel SMEs into the same competitive advantage position that bigger companies have with their spending power. 

So how can SMEs make the most of a cloud platform to get an edge over their competition? Here are 5 ways:

1. Connected Business Value

An integrated cloud platform for business management provides a medium for businesses to manage their entire ecosystem of digital applications in one place. From functions such as CRM and marketing automation to deal with customers and ERP and HRM to handle internal operations, there is a need to bring a streamlined workflow that connects insights from each department and makes it available for general consumption. 

Read more: 5 Reasons Why Every SMB Should Invest In An ERP Solution 

A cloud platform-based business management software empowers businesses to achieve this feat at ease. When all stakeholders of a business value chain are brought into a single collaborative platform, it becomes easier to offer better services at a faster pace to customers.

2. Easier Development of New Features

Over time, your business may require newer capabilities in its digital channels to remain competitive. These features and capabilities may be required across different applications or business departments and incorporating them should not be an overly complex endeavor. 

With an integrated cloud platform, newer business applications or features could be developed by business users with low code application development mechanisms, facilitated by such platforms. In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2021, nearly 30% of manufacturing organizations will entrust their digital teams to build new features with low code technology. With an integrated business management platform, it becomes easier to maintain a common technology architecture and extensible APIs onto which new features can be easily built and deployed.

Read more: How Workplace Technology and Culture Will Evolve in 2020 & Beyond

3. Reduced Operational Costs

Having disconnected and disparate digital applications in your technology ecosystem can push up operational costs as each system may need access to a different talent pool of specialists for any maintenance or development activity. Having an integrated platform deployed on the cloud will ensure that there is a need only for a single point of contact for all maintenance and development needs. The unified technology architecture makes it easier for newer developers to build features that can be shared across units without the need for development and deployment effort in each individual business system across units. This will greatly improve cost savings in the long run.

Read more: 3 Strong Reasons for Your Business to Embrace Cloud-based IT Services 

4. Seamless Organizational Data Management

By leveraging a cloud platform, businesses can enable different sub-functions or departments to work simultaneously on the same digital data from across systems and ensure that all have access to the latest version of files as well. With an integrated system, businesses can save on data re-engineering and re-modeling efforts for interoperability between systems. 

Having a centralized business management platform on the cloud also provides a single source of truth as far as key business data is concerned. Management can draw up analytical reports, insights on performance, evaluate metrics of growth, and much more easily from a unified system of applications that cater to multiple business units. Data synchronization and real-time updates allow organizations to maintain the integrity of business data and enable transparency between departments accessing or working on the same data.

5. Easy Cultural Adaptability

When the core business operations are managed and run by software on the cloud, it becomes easier for businesses to respond to cultural changes that may happen abruptly. A striking example is the COVID-19 pandemic which forced hundreds of thousands of businesses to transition into a work from home or remote operations model for employee safety. Those that had a digital core managed by an integrated cloud platform faced no disruption as employees could carry out their daily tasks from the comfort of their homes by securely accessing the organizational cloud system whereas those that did not use such a mechanism found their business to be disrupted for days due to delays in facilitating work from home for all staff.

Read more: How InfinCE Helps You Quickly Transit to Remote Working

How InfinCE Helps

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world, it was predicted that nearly 78% of all small businesses will fully adopt cloud computing by the end of 2020. By moving to the cloud, they not only realize the benefits of scalability and cost-efficiency but also set the pace for the rapid proliferation of digital transformation. With a powerful integrated cloud platform at the core of operations, enterprises can propel their digital future to new heights. Making the right choice for such a cloud platform is all that matters in this case. If you’re thinking about making the switch to the cloud, then InfinCE can be the answer you were looking for. 

With years of expertise in powering the digital backbone of successful businesses worldwide, InfinCE can become the central business management platform of your business handling everything from ERP to Sales and CRM functions. Get in touch with our experts to learn more.

How to Stay on Top of Video Conferencing Software Security

Video conferencing has emerged as one of the simplest solutions to overcome the challenges of social distancing and restrictions on physical meetings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As more and more businesses are implementing video conferencing solutions for managing their day-to-day operations, the trend has led to the development of a wide range of collaboration platforms as well. However, as the demand grew, it brought along a few security challenges too.

Read more: 10 Benefits of Using Business Communication Apps to Future-Proof Your Company 

Businesses utilizing a video meeting platform to communicate with their team, clients, and customers need to understand that remote video conferencing carries an inherent data risk as well. That is why you need to ensure that you adopt the right cybersecurity measures to protect your organization’s confidential data. Below are 5 ways to help you keep your shared data safe while ensuring increased productivity and collaboration.

1. Monitor your network security

Implementing adequate network security measures is vital for keeping sensitive business data safe from hackers. It does not matter how secure the devices are that you use to connect to the video conferencing software; if you do not have proper network security, anyone can obtain the details shared via video conference by gaining access to the company network.

You can use encrypted passwords and customized firewalls to secure your network. Likewise, you should also use Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication for all users to reduce the risks of network breaches due to compromised user credentials. As SSO credentials are strategically linked to the specific user’s authorization and entitlements, it will help to monitor and control access to all the video conferencing units in case the user credentials are compromised.

2. Assess your current video meeting platform

If you are using a legacy video conferencing software solution, then you could be dealing with an outdated platform with weak security features. Even the best meeting software that performed well a couple of years ago can be at risk of security breaches if it is not updated regularly with the latest security patches. That means putting your employees, customers, clients, and your company reputation at risk. 

Note that installing updates may not work after a certain point for older video conferencing technology. So it will be wiser to upgrade to a reliable, modern team collaboration software like InfinCE. Users can enjoy enhanced communication, without the fear of data breach through InfinCE’s video conferencing platform. 

Read more: Why Is InfinCE A Better Choice For Safe Video Calling Than Zoom

The latest video meeting solutions come with advanced data encryption features that will help to keep your online conferences private and shared data safe and secure.

3. Use tough-to-crack video conference passwords

In order to keep your video conferences secure, you need to secure both your software and hardware with 128-bit AES protection. This security measure will allow your video meeting platform to use a 128-bit key to encrypt and decrypt all the video calls. As it works by automatically generating secured keys before the start of each video conference, it makes cracking the passwords virtually impossible for hackers.

You should ensure that you secure all your new business conferences, instant video calls, personal meetings, and attendees with unbreakable 128-bit encryption. It is also important that you never shared the video conference links via open channels like social media, as it will make it very easy for hackers to hop into your video conferences and try to steal secure company data.

4. Get the best meeting software with domain-based approach

There are a lot of video conferencing solutions out there, but not all of them follow the domain-based approach to security. Choosing such a provider will help you to make sure that all the attendees can collaborate in a well-controlled and secure environment. Moreover, it will also ensure that you do not connect your video conferencing software directly to the internet without a firewall.

Regardless of whether it is managed by the video conferencing provider or by your in-house IT team, domain-based security will allow you to assign various levels of user permissions to have better control of the video conferences. This way, if hackers try to hop into your video meetings, they will not be able to enter the system without you granting access.

Read more: Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Teams that Aid Remote Work in 2020 

5. Ensure robust privacy policies

Choosing the best meeting software for your video conferencing needs also has the benefit of reliable privacy policies. Check that the video meeting solution you use has clear policies on the collection of user information as well as meeting content for any kind of advertising or marketing efforts. Moreover, you should also create a video conferencing policy for your company to establish clear guidelines and expectations for all users.

You should have a well-defined privacy policy that specifies who can connect to the video conferencing software remotely and how they should access and use the shared data. You can even prepare a list of team members, pre-approved clients, customers, and vendors, who can gain access to specific meetings to bolster the security of your video conferences.

Apart from following all the above-stated guidelines, you should also ensure that your employees are educated on how to host and manage a secure video conference. For that, you can conduct training sessions to explain the specific steps, recommended security settings, and company policies that they should follow to maximize video conferencing security.

Want to know how InfinCE can elevate your video calling experience with robust security and exceptional collaboration features? Get in touch with our expert today.  

10 Leading Apps for Secure Enterprise File Transfer in 2020

From being one of the world’s most severe pandemics, the COVID-19 disease has devastated economies of almost all countries worldwide by forcing them to go into lockdown situations that were unprecedented in the past. There are several businesses that have been forced to operate with their staff working remotely and their business moving to predominantly digital channels. From retail to finance, there was a rapid shift in consumer appetite from an in-person store or branch visit to availing of goods and services from the comfort of their homes. To sustain operations of their digital customer channels, businesses had to ensure that their workforce too was able to work seamlessly and productively from their homes. However, conducting daily business operations from home rather than an office environment had its fair share of challenges. One of the most dominant challenges that existed was facilitating seamless and secure file sharing between employees. 

Confidential files that involved sensitive information are often shared between employees of the same department or between departments for various operational reasons. While at the office, the securely monitored local network serves as the best medium to share files irrespective of a file’s size. Being locally hosted and monitored, there wasn’t any threat from erroneous or malicious access being made of the files. For employees who now have to work from home, businesses have to rely on internet-based file-sharing platforms to enable continuity of their operations through successful employee collaboration.

Read more: 6 Ways to Build a Secure File Sharing Practice Within Your Organization

Keeping this need of facilitating secure file transfer between employees, let us explore the top 10 apps that help businesses achieve this feat seamlessly:

1. InfinCE

If you are looking for a one-stop-shop to enable your business to transition into a digital-friendly one, then InfinCE is the solution you have been searching for. InfinCE offers unparalleled cloud file storage and sharing options as well as becomes a comprehensive enterprise digital platform for collaboration, customer relationship management, HRM, and all core operational areas. InfinCE offers a branded cloud platform and a custom website builder with personalized options to match your brand’s identity. 

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

2. Dropbox Business

One of the early birds in the cloud storage market, Dropbox made its name from being the preferred destination for storing and sharing files online. For businesses, they have a dedicated enterprise version offering seamless file sharing, collaboration, and synchronization while ensuring secure information exchange between stakeholders.

3. G Suite Google Drive

Google is the undisputed leader for personal communication and collaboration with its range of services like Gmail and G Suite web productivity and storage apps. For businesses, Google offers an even more superlative file sharing and collaborative experience with its dedicated business focused G Suite Google Drive services. With highly affordable subscription plans and splendid support, it offers a great value proposition for businesses of all sizes.

4. One Drive for Business

Microsoft did not want to be left out of the enterprise file sharing market when its key rivals were all offering highly competitive products to entice customers. The One Drive for Business platform offers a highly scalable cloud-based storage and file sharing service that allows employees to securely share large files with their peers effortlessly and also get access to Microsoft’s leading enterprise collaboration tools like MS Word, PowerPoint, etc. as integrated subscription options for very attractive prices.

Read more: Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Teams that Aid Remote Work in 2020 

5. Citrix ShareFile

Citrix is a darling of the enterprise world where thousands of companies rely on their virtualization and secure remote access platforms to conduct business. The file-sharing app offered by Citrix offers an equally efficient job of helping businesses facilitate better and more secure file sharing to sustain their operations.

6. Firefox Send

The world’s most popular open-source web browser offers a free and secure file sharing feature via the Firefox Send option. It allows users to share files securely by simply dragging and dropping the file into the browser and share access links to relevant stakeholders. You even have options to set expiry for the files after a certain number of downloads or even set password protection for added security.

7. WeTransfer

WeTransfer provides business users with a simple drag and drop interface to host files on the cloud and share it with privileged access to any stakeholder. With free and paid versions available, the platform offers one of the quickest free sharing experiences for any collaborative file.

8. FileCloud

If you need a file-sharing platform that can be customized with your own intuitive corporate branding guidelines, then FileCloud is the perfect option for your business. It offers a highly personalized dashboard that can be modified according to your branding guidelines to give a unique user experience for all your employees while they use it to share files seamlessly with peers.

9. Box Business

Box is also one of the earliest cloud storage companies that revolutionized online file sharing. With seamless integration capabilities for G-suite, Office 365, and other popular collaboration platforms, Box makes for an attractive enterprise data-sharing platform with secure credentials thanks to its focus on encryption using data protection policies of high standards.

10. SendAnywhere

This is one platform that sticks to its name more rigorously to carry out its operations. It simply lets users send files from one location to anywhere using its secure data transfer channel. A paid subscription offers higher data caps and more control over transfer permissions making it a worthy contender for today’s business users.

Read more: 11 Online Collaboration Tools That Facilitate Remote Work In 2020

We hope you get to make an informed choice for your business’s digital future from our recommendations above and enable your staff to seamlessly share information and collaborate on work. Besides secure file transfer, InfinCE offers a basket of features that enable hassle-free and seamless remote work for enterprises of all sizes. 

Get in touch with us to know more about how InfinCE can be the best remote cloud platform for your business. 

Why Businesses Should Make Cloud their Number One Priority

In the initial days of business technology adoption, many companies were using technology only as a supporting tool for their operations. But today, these companies are turning their technology ecosystem into a mainstream revenue source. 

If you were to enquire about the most influential tech that spurred such a digital innovation for businesses of all sizes in the past decade, the answer will be cloud computing. The world of digital was thrown open for SMBs primarily with the growth of cloud computing over the last 10 years. Experts say that on a global scale, cloud-hosted workloads have grown from 45% in 2018 to 60% in 2019.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses have started realizing more about the advantages of cloud-hosted digital channels. 57% of businesses that were surveyed recently report that their cloud adoption has increased anywhere between 26-31% after the pandemic’s strike. 

Besides, the growing digital-savvy consumer base is more than happy to welcome cloud-powered digital channels launched by their favorite brands. So businesses cannot turn away from the cloud-enabled customer and employee engagement channels.  

There are several factors that make cloud-based IT services the need of the hour. This post explores the top 3 reasons that accelerate cloud adoption among businesses:

1. Cost advantage

With cloud computing, an enterprise has the option to pay for only what they use from a technology perspective (pay per use). It could be anything from the number of users, storage capacity, computing power, bandwidth, or any combination of these. 

Unlike the traditional model of building an on-premise technology ecosystem that serves a large workforce to run critical business applications within a business premise, companies can tap into the power of modern-day digital platforms powered by Cloud, with just a web browser or through a mobile app or mobile site. This brings in a huge reduction in the IT operational costs and is one of the key reasons for the growth of cloud computing over the years.

2. Freedom to scale at will

For most businesses today, the rate of growth of their business will be highly dynamic in nature. There may be sudden spikes of consumer demand according to seasonal events like for example, retailers facing increased consumer spending during the holiday season. As with the spike, there may be periods of very low sales or growth volumes depending on various factors like for example the reduced spending by consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The traditional model of having a dedicated in-house digital platform to handle operations would thus require you to invest in installing high power machines and processing power at all times to meet surges in demand even though the surge will only be witnessed occasionally. With cloud-based digital platforms, businesses have the freedom to scale up or down depending on demand from their end consumers. They do not have to maintain any dedicated infrastructure, pay for full performance all through the year, or waste computing power without purpose. 

For instance, InfinCE’s cloud-based remote work collaboration platform offers you a dedicated IT infrastructure that’s well supported, maintained, and upgraded by us from time to time. This saves you from making any additional investments to spruce up your infrastructure forced by your public cloud service provider. 

3. Access to Continuous Innovation

One of the major disadvantages of on-premise software is that they turn obsolete in very short time frames. Newmarket innovations happen almost yearly or at even shorter time frames. This will force businesses to continuously invest in buying newer systems every year to keep up with competitors in terms of features. Cloud-based software on the other hand guarantees you access to a digital platform that will be constantly upgraded by the service provider based on market trends. 

As a business owner, you do not have to focus on R&D for identifying trends, incorporating newer features, and expanding the scope of the platform. All of these would be done by the service provider and offered to you instantly when the new feature is rolled out by them to the market. Be it AI or ML, big data analytics based insight generation or implementing blockchain, IoT, etc. your business will enjoy access to all emerging technological capabilities without having to worry about integrating the same to your digital channels.

Cloud-based technology infrastructure and applications will reshape the business world in more ways than one. As a business owner, your aim should be to pick the best cloud platform to manage and grow sustainably. Here is where InfinCE can be the game-changer. Some of the world’s growing SMBs trust InfinCE to handle their online work collaboration seamlessly. With capabilities such as CRM, ERP, private email, virtual private servers, custom website builder, marketing automation, etc. all available in one place, InfinCE is your one-stop destination to transition fast into a cloud-first business. 

Get in touch with us to know how you can leverage this all-in-one collaboration platform to manage work from anywhere.

CRM systems have come a long way from their origins as contact management systems for storing and retrieving contact information. Enterprises across-the-board now regard it as a valuable and indispensable tool to not just manage and improve relationships with contacts but to manage the entire gamut of customer relationship management.

The nature of CRM has also witnessed a tectonic shift. Cloud-based CRM now dominates with 87% of the total market share, a big jump from just 12% in 2007. The overwhelming preference for cloud-based CRM is for good reasons.

1. The Cloud Facilitates Big Savings in Cost and Effort

On-premises CRM entails huge upfront investment in hardware and servers. The cloud CRM vendor absorbs such investment and offers a pay-as-you-go payment model for clients. Businesses pay only a monthly charge, converting their capital-expense (CAPEX) costs into an easy attributable operational expense (OPEX.) Still better, the CRM becomes easily scalable, with the ability to add capacity easily as and when required, and scale-down during downtime.

The spillover monetary benefits of hosting CRM in the cloud includes hassle-free maintenance, no troubleshooting, and freedom from having to upgrade the CRM periodically. These tasks are done by the vendor, and the enterprise can, in fact, do without single IT personnel in-house.

Cloud-based systems are quick and painless to deploy as well. The set-up is as simple as paying the subscription fees and logging in. Cloud-based CRM systems tend to prioritize ease of use and accessibility, meaning easier learning curve for end users and lesser training costs for enterprises.

2. Cloud Enables Anytime, Anywhere Access

The biggest advantage of cloud-based CRM is anytime, anywhere access. The data and the software reside in the cloud, and accessible through convenient mobile apps or other front end software, without constraints of geography or time. The ability to access the CRM through intuitive mobile apps is arguably the single biggest benefit of cloud-based CRM considering 65% of employees achieve their sales quota when using mobile CRM, and only 22% of employees achieve their sales quota when mobile CRM isn’t used.

The anytime anywhere access make cloud hosted CRM ideal for today’s fast-paced and highly competitive world, where opportunities exist only for a short while and have to be seized at the instant. Opportunities come knocking rarely. With a cloud-based CRM ready, the executive is ready to seize the opportunity by having all information and resources in his smartphone, regardless of whether he is at the airport, a spa, a business meeting or out for lunch.

3. Cloud Brings Integrated Data Management

A cloud-based CRM not just centralizes data in one place, but is also handy to integrate information from external, disparate sources, such as media activity, project management information, accounting information, and more. Dedicated cloud integration tools facilitate the seamless sharing of data from disparate sources.

The integrated and consolidated processing of information prevents gaps in information or understanding when dealing with a customer across multiple touch points. Marketers and other users have access to real-time or latest data, synced from the cloud server whenever online.

4. Cloud-Based CRM is Always Updated

Upgrading on-premises CRM is a hassle, requiring modification of the code, and provisioning everything again. With a cloud-based CRM, the vendor takes up the task. The vendor is more likely to upgrade the CRM and co-opt new features very fast, to pre-empt losing customers to competitor products. Cloud-based CRM vendors are also more likely to innovate, to offer better features and functionality, to differentiate themselves from competitors.

5. Cloud CRM Facilitates Seamless Collaboration

A cloud-based CRM doubles up as an effective collaboration tool, offering remote and off-site employees a reliable and robust medium to connect and collaborate with their team and customers alike. The Cloud CRM offers a common interface enabling team members to share data and updates that contribute to the end objective of increasing sales and customer satisfaction. International teams especially can collaborate effectively across time-zones.

6. Cloud Offers Robust Security More Often Than Not

Security is the literally the million dollar question staring at enterprises in the wake of heightened security breaches. A 2018 study by Juniper Research estimates cybercriminals to steal an estimated 33 billion records in 2023, up from an already whopping 12 billion records in 2018.

Contrary to perception, the cloud is more secure than on-premises systems. Any decent cloud-based CRM offers robust security, free from the usual suspects of out-of-date software. The CRM is the bread and butter rather than an appendix, the vendor is more likely to and is able to take the proper precautions, with dedicated staff looking to discovering and closing weak security points.

CRM also lessens the risk of system failure, with dedicated servers and redundant databases minimizing the risk of loss of data or downtime. Businesses have the flexibility to negotiate an SLA service-level agreement with an agreed upon level of service, including the acceptable “downtime,” beyond which compensation sets in.

While the cloud-based CRM offers several advantages, it is by no means a magic wand to success. Success depends on the skillful implementation, overcoming challenges such as retaining control of data, effective collaboration with the vendor’s support system and provisioning adequate bandwidth to access the cloud seamlessly. With INFINCE make it all possible. Call us today to learn how INFINCE can help you battle business challenges with infinite cloud.