{"id":14234,"date":"2015-05-07T23:55:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T23:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2015\/may\/08\/cloud-playing-more-significant-role-day-day-work-smb-employees\/"},"modified":"2015-05-07T23:55:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T23:55:29","slug":"cloud-playing-a-more-significant-role-in-day-to-day-work-for-smb-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/cloud-playing-a-more-significant-role-in-day-to-day-work-for-smb-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud playing a more significant role in day to day work for SMB employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(c)iStock.com\/robuart<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Workers in small to medium businesses (SMBs) feel happier and more productive when using cloud apps in their day to day work, according to new research from Kronos.<\/p>\n<p>The study, which focused on 1000 European knowledge workers in SMBs, notes how late many small businesses are in moving to the cloud, arguing SMB leaders are &ldquo;yet to realise [its] strategic value&rdquo;. Yet almost two thirds (63%) believe the majority of their work will be carried out through cloud apps by 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of a productive working atmosphere is key, according to the report. Employees are more likely to expect reliable software (86%) or hardware (84%) than a competitive salary (75%).<\/p>\n<p>Workforce flexibility was the most important benefit of cloud apps for employers, with 58% of the vote, followed by cost savings (49%) and increased agility (48%). For employees, this swapped to flexibility (91%), real-time access (89%) and quicker software updates (84%). When it came to deciding a particular piece of cloud software, speed of use (95%) was the most important factor, followed by the security of the company (90%), security of data (89%) and simplicity (88%).<\/p>\n<p>Despite the overall feeling of small businesses adapting more readily to cloud, there is still plenty of work to do. Only a third (34%) of those polled believe they are getting either &lsquo;maximum&rsquo; or &lsquo;great&rsquo; value from their cloud applications, while three in five (61%) believe their firm needs a more definitive policy on the way cloud apps are used by employees.<\/p>\n<p>Kronos argues the next few years are &ldquo;critical&rdquo; for SMBs as they will be forced to gain a further grip on cloud technologies. The key, the firm argues, is to establish clear guidelines on usage, ensuring employees are more productive while secure at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>This is something we&rsquo;ve heard in the past, of course, but the tide is turning: 83% of respondents said that, given the opportunity, they would prefer to use cloud apps over their on-premise equivalents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(c)iStock.com\/robuart<br \/>\nWorkers in small to medium businesses (SMBs) feel happier and more productive when using cloud apps in their day to day work, according to new research from Kronos.<br \/>\nThe study, which focused on 1000 European knowledge workers in SM&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14235,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14234\/revisions\/14235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}