Small- to medium-size (SMB) companies have benefited from the growth of cloud services—gaining access to IT resources and applications that previously only large enterprises with extensive budgets could afford. These services have reduced the need for large, up-front investments; spurred innovation; and made it easier to access critical information away from the desktop.
“With cloud, SMB organizations now have access to the same solutions as the largest of enterprises. Essentially, this levels the playing field by lowering the barriers to entry of these advanced systems,” says advisory firm AVOA. According to SMB Group, 92% of SMBs use at least one cloud application.
But when it comes to core applications for accounting, manufacturing, distribution, and inventory management, many SMBs have been more cautious about moving to the cloud. Many are reliant on customized applications they’ve built atop their on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Those time-tested applications and associated business processes represent the “crown jewels” of the
business and are critical to operations—thus better kept in house.