Is your head in the clouds? Your data may be: according to CIO Magazine, “Recent research from cloud solutions provider RightScale [is] showing 93 percent of businesses using cloud technology in some form or another.” Small, medium and large businesses alike are turning to the versatile world of cloud computing for software and data storage. What are some of the advantages of heading to the cloud?
1. Disaster Preparedness
One of the most prominent reasons to back up your data in the cloud is its resilience against disasters. Whether you experience theft, fire, or a natural disaster, none of these situations are good for your data integrity. If you store your insurance data locally, or even store more basic information such as customer contact information, you could lose it all in a disaster. Instead of worrying about restoring your business data, cloud-based storage allows you to think about restoring your physical business location after an emergency.
2. Enhanced Collaboration
When you use cloud-based software products, you open up new potential for collaboration. From Dropbox to Salesforce, there are innumerable cloud-based products available to allow your team to collaborate on different data-intensive projects. Instead of emailing each other edited documents or handing a single staff person notes with information to add to the database, your employees can do this from within a single, integrated, and online data management system. This reduces the chance of errors and allows you to coordinate with people in different cities and time zones.
3. Workplace Flexibility
In recent decades, the workplace has moved far beyond a physical space and has become more flexible. Some of your employees may work from home some of the time, while others would prefer to add information to files directly through a mobile device when they’re working on-site. Cloud-based data storage and software allow your insurance business to provide more flexible insurance agent career options such as modified schedules or work from home opportunities. They also increase efficiency by reducing the need to call the office for information when you’re working off-site. When you can place data directly into software you access remotely, then you don’t need to return to the office to do data entry.
4. Data Security
While placing and accessing information online may not feel like it’s secure, one of the advantages of online data storage is its security. Your employees don’t mean to lose their mobile devices or laptops, but they do. When you’re using data that’s stored in the cloud, you can cut off access if a device gets lost, but you don’t lose the data itself, because it isn’t stored on a single device.
Throughout your insurance career, you’ll see vast changes in products and technologies. That’s why you need American Agents Alliance: we work with independent insurance agents like you to help you stay up to date on the changes that impact your business. When you’re looking for cloud computing options, contact us. Through our partnership with Archway, we’ll help you access the latest in cloud-based data backup. 
