Johannesburg, 25 Apr 2012
There has been a significant increase in the uptake of cloud services in South Africa for a number of reasons, says Keith Fenner, Vice-President of Sales for Africa, Softline Accpac and Sage MMD Africa, part of the Sage Group.
"The cloud uptake could be as a result of savings that can be made on capital expenditure or even the vast improvement that we have seen in South Africa`s broadband capability and affordability. The cloud offering across all our ERP and CRM products has increased as a result of the mobility and real-time data availability that the cloud offers," explains Fenner.
Cloud is a hosted environment that resides off-site, which provides unlimited flexibility in its application across the board. It effectively allows the user to consume IT as a service from any Internet accessed location, and it is usually billed at an agreed upon rate based on the volume utilised per user.
The most profound advantage of the cloud is that there are no hardware or database costs involved, as these aspects of the solution are provided by the service provider. "It effectively moves your IT expenditure from a capital expense into an operational expenditure that is staggered over time. It makes a great deal of sense in our current economic climate, as you pay for what you use, which makes it adaptable and agile to your business requirements," explains Fenner.
Most companies that are considering the integration of cloud into their business can start on a small scale, and look into cloud storage and back-up solutions that are currently available in the market. "Moving your entire operation into the cloud may prove to be a bit more challenging and is something that should be considered very carefully. I would suggest that users make the move into the cloud once they are completely comfortable with the concept," says Fenner.
More users are coming to terms with their security fears in the cloud, as the data is normally secured by means of complex back-up processes that makes the information in the cloud more secure than the data housed on a server that is sitting in the office, in most cases.
Awareness of cloud in the general market is growing. "Companies such as Apple are talking about their iCloud offerings. People are getting more familiar with the term cloud and they are linking it with other offerings that they can use in the cloud, such as YouTube and Facebook, to name a few. It is fuelling the imagination and aiding people to think of new ways to do business. The question that most clients pose is whether they can do their CRM and ERP in the cloud? The answer is a resounding yes, and with great success too," concludes Fenner.
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