Cloud Insights

By now we’ve all heard of “the great resignation,” and while that certainly creates a challenge for employers, it’s far from the only employment-related challenge facing small and midsized businesses (SMBs). There’s also the fact that baby boomers are retiring and the key positions they held will be filled with a younger generation with decidedly different expectations from their employers. In addition, when employees leave, they often try to take company data with them, creating real security concerns. It’s a brave new workforce world out there, and SMBs who don’t or can’t adapt will be left behind. A changing workforce is Risk #5 in our series highlighting five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo. How can cloud hosting help SMBs navigate the new employment landscape, turning challenges into opportunities? The Great Resignation is compounded by the Silver Tsunami You’ve no doubt heard the term “The Great Resignation.” The popular phrase refers to the roughly 33 million Americans who have quit their jobs since the spring of 2021. Some of these are older workers who decided to retire early. Others are secondary earners leaving the job market to care for children who were home from school. Likely most of those quitting were simply in search for better pay, perks, and flexibility. Now, adding to the exodus is a “Silver Tsunami” of Baby Boomers leaving the workforce. A recent survey from Coventry showed that over 75% of the respondents said they plan to retire early. The wave of resignations and retirements leaves SMBs with gaps in their workforce. And those gaps are being filled by a younger generation who have vastly different plans for their career paths, and very different expectations from their employers. Gen Z and millennials now comprise nearly half the US workforce, making them a (work)force to be reckoned with. Attracting and retaining this talent requires SMBs to adopt a new mindset. It requires SMBs to digitally transform themselves from Takeoff companies to Destination companies. Are you a Destination or a Takeoff company? Millennials are digital natives — they grew up with technology and the internet. These are the children of Baby Boomers. Fortune magazine calls 1995 (millennials were born between xx and 1996) “The Year Everything Changed.” Internet technology powerhouses like Amazon, eBay, and Match.com got their start in 1995. This may be all you need to know about millennials — they’ve never known a world without Amazon. Technology is completely integrated into the everyday life of millennials. They do not ask for sufficient technology at their jobs — they expect it. To their credit, the expectation doesn’t come from a sense of entitlement — what millennials really want are the tools they need to do their job efficiently. Employers seen as technology laggards simply can’t compete for this segment of the workforce. Offering higher and higher salaries may initially attract them, but they will quickly takeoff. Unless SMBs invest in their technology infrastructures and business management applications, they will forever be Takeoff companies while their competitors who have embraced cloud technologies will be the Destination. Technology laggards are vulnerable to data loss Attracting and retaining new talent is more challenging for technology laggards. If that weren’t enough, these companies are also in a more precarious position regarding data security. When employees leave, they take company data with them. In the last 30 days of employment, upload three-time more data to personal apps. Specifically, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive instances are the most popular targets. The trend has most certainly accelerated as employees work in the relative privacy of their homes. Tech-savvy companies who have invested in robust, cloud-based security controls, can prevent data loss before it starts. Cloud is a recruiting, retention, and engagement tool The workforce is forever changed. Even if a majority of employees ultimately return to the office, the status quo of two years ago no longer flies. Companies must transform themselves into places the next generation of employees want to work. Investing in cloud technologies, including cloud hosting, is a definitive step SMBs can take to recruit, retain, and engage these tech-savvy professionals. By arming this generation with the best tools, your SMB not only becomes an employment destination, but it also becomes a business with the tools necessary to grow, scale, and compete.

Heard of Moore’s Law? It’s a rule stemming from a 1965 forecast by Gordon Moore that predicts the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. The rule helped explain the trend we long witnessed, that as technology products get better and faster, their production costs go down. The rule held for decades, and as a result, technology products have generally had a “deflationary effect.” Well, move over Moore and make room for Murphy. Computer prices are bad now, and they’re likely to get worse. Inflation is Risk #4 in our series highlighting five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo. How can cloud hosting help mitigate the effects of inflation? The “I” word Inflation surged 7.5% in January 2022, the single biggest increase since February 1982. Costs jumped across nearly all categories — including computer equipment, one sector that has historically been untouched by inflation. For decades we saw the prices of computers and consumer electronics trend down — way down. From December 1997 to August 2015, the Consumer Price Index for personal computers and peripheral equipment declined 96%. Low prices were largely fueled by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower offshore labor costs, and improvements in semiconductor design (remember Moore?). My how things can change. The average selling prices of PC are up 10% compared to a year ago. Chip prices alone are up 25% — if you can get one. And the expectation is that prices may go up by another 20% in 2022. Server prices are following the same trend. AMD, a semiconductor manufacturer specializing in high-performance server equipment, is raising prices on data center processors by 10% to 30%, with smaller customers seeing the largest increases. And backlogs are long and getting longer. Shortages of the components used in server production are expected to last through mid-2023 at least. Seeing that chips are the lifeblood of modern society, many pundits predict that even if inflation rates decline, the days of inexpensive technology is gone. With virtually limitless demand, there’s little incentive to drop pricing even when production rates increase. How cloud can help Moving to a hosted cloud model means a business needs fewer (if any) servers. Sure, they’ll still need workstations and laptops, but the big, expensive, backordered servers are now someone else’s responsibility. It might sound too simplistic to simply say that when you buy less of something, you save money, but for cloud hosting, it’s mostly true. In most cloud hosting models, you no longer need to buy servers. Instead, you’re renting space on a big, powerful server, essentially sharing the cost of the resource with other like-minded businesses. Cloud hosting provides another tangible, cost-saving benefit for growing companies — it’s enormously scalable. If a business outgrows its in-house server, it risks downtime, performance deterioration, and even lost revenue until it can buy, install, and configure a new, more powerful server. If the same business uses a hosted cloud provider, they simply pay for additional the resources they need. No downtime. No waiting. It seems inevitable that technology inflation is a one-way street and costs will continue to rise. A move to cloud hosting can keep business flowing both ways, future-proofing your business by ensuring the technology you rely on is always on, always secure, and always at your service.

Cloud at Work successfully completes SOC 2 Type 2 certification, a rigorous process that audits privacy, confidentiality, security, availability, and processing integrity; validates company’s commitment to client trust and care NEW YORK, NY – March 24, 2022 – Cloud at Work, a purpose-built Sage hosting solution, today announced that it has received SOC 2 Certification, which allows their clients to have complete confidence in the security, integrity and availability of their data, assuring business continuity and improved operational efficiencies. The SOC 2 reporting framework, created by AICPA sets benchmarks for managing user data, and is based on Trust Services Criteria: privacy, confidentiality, security, availability, and processing integrity. Cloud at Work enlisted a third-party accounting firm to conduct a nine-month audit to validate that its platform has the controls in place to achieve SOC 2 certification. Achieving certification on all five Trust Services Criteria further enhances Cloud at Work’s ability to support Sage customers with a world-class cloud experience, from fast, painless deployment to uninterrupted access and reliable performance. “We knew the SOC 2 certification was going to be an intensive, time-consuming process, but it’s a further demonstration of our commitment to providing Sage users with the industry’s most secure, high-performance cloud platform,” said Tyler Bower, Director of Cloud and Hosting at Cloud at Work “Our number one priority is ensuring the security, integrity and availability of our clients’ data. It’s the foundation of our core value proposition: combining a robust cloud infrastructure with unmatched support and expertise that enables our clients to realize the increased performance, efficiencies and financial benefits of SaaS.” About Cloud at Work Cloud at Work gives users of Sage applications more capabilities and control to increase business performance using their technology investments. With a knowledgeable, highly responsive team of Sage application experts and advanced cloud hosting solutions personalized to customer strengths, Cloud at Work helps its customers pivot more quickly to capitalize on new business opportunities and resolve issues faster. Businesses using Sage trust Cloud at Work to help them achieve higher levels of business productivity and resiliency that outpace competitors and help them capture more market share. Visit thecloudatwork.com for more information. @media (max-width: 500px) {.hero-internal-page { background: url('https://www.thecloudatwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/bg-aicpa-post-mobile.jpg') no-repeat !important; background-size: cover !important;}}

Deploy Sage applications in the cloud with Sage Partner Cloud | Cloud at Work – with no monthly payments until August 2022. Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider is offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 3 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign up for Sage hosting with Cloud at Work by April 29, 2022. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no monthly payments until August 2022. This offer is available for all Sage applications: Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, Sage HRMS, Sage FAS etc. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about the Sage cloud hosting promotion and pricing options, or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires April 29, 2022. Qualifying businesses must establish a new 2 yr minimum Cloud at Work subscription.

We’re working our way through the series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, where we’ve highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo. We encourage you to check out the first and second posts in the series. The third risk in maintaining the status quo surrounds cybersecurity, and it could be the most pressing single risk yet. For most small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), their security is, well, insecure. The risk of inaction is real, and potentially devastating. The good news is, it’s a risk they can mitigate. Why is cybersecurity a heightened risk for SMBs — and how can cloud hosting minimize the risk? Size doesn’t matter Some small and midsized companies have a false sense of security that they won’t be the target of a ransomware attack because they are smaller. In reality, perpetrators love to attack small businesses — they comprise between one-half and three-quarters of the ransomware victims.  A 2020 SMB cybersecurity report from Connectwise found that 55% of SMBs have experienced a cyberattack. SMBs who fail to take the risk seriously, and take proactive action to secure their technology infrastructure, are risking everything. Some 60% of small businesses that experience a cyberattack are closed within six months. The onslaught is real There’s a new ransomware attack every eight minutes. More than 30,000 websites are attacked each day. And it’s not just the frequency that’s increasing. The attacks are becoming more sophisticated too. For example, the US Treasury Department identified 68 separate ransomware variants in 2021. The list of scary metrics surrounding cybersecurity goes on and staying out in front on this security minefield requires more resources than most SMBs have internally. Cybersecurity insurance coverage is hard to get Cybersecurity insurance offers a measure of protection for SBMs, but it’s getting harder to buy. High demand in combination with high payouts leads to increased premiums. Businesses report premium hikes of 50% and even 100% year over year. Naturally, insurance companies want to mitigate risks by recommending — or even mandating — that their insured take the proper precautions to protect against loss. The newest and most significant of those mandates is the requirement for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Other requirements may include a current and tested incident response plan, an updated patch management program, air-gapped and encrypted backups, and employee awareness and phishing simulations, among others — all making it difficult for SMBs to secure and retain coverage. The security army is shy on soldiers The challenging employment climate, including the Great Resignation, has hit the IT industry particularly hard. Some reports have suggested a third of tech workers plan to quit in the next 12 months — others claim as many as three-quarters. On average, cybersecurity roles take 21% longer to fill than other IT jobs. Combine that with a significant uptick in demand for IT workers. It all adds up to an unprecedented zero-percent unemployment rate! There are simply not enough qualified workers to provide SMBs the protection they need. A 2021 Cybersecurity Workforce Study suggests the global cybersecurity workforce would need to grow 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets. Remote work compounds the risk Companies are worried about the security habits of their remote workforce – and rightly so. More than a third of remote workers admitted to picking up bad cybersecurity practices and using security workarounds while working at home. These practices expose SMBs to additional security risks, such as email phishing schemes, which have accelerated during the pandemic. Other risks associated with remote work are remote desktop protocol (RDP) breaches. During Q1 of 2021, RDP breaches were responsible for the most ransomware attacks — despite reliable tools for securing RDP access. Cloud – a safe port in the storm More sophisticated and more frequent attacks combined with new mandates, fewer qualified IT personnel, and lax security practices create the perfect storm for SMBs. In our experience, SMBs have a very clear awareness of their security risks, but many lack the necessary internal resources to fully combat those risks. Even organizations with robust in-house IT departments are pressed to have the necessary resources to remain out in front of the essential security tasks and protocols. Cloud Services Provider (CSPs) like Cloud at Work host your business applications in state-of-the-art data centers where redundancy, security, and availability are maintained at the highest level. Our data centers, for example, are geo diverse, provide 24/7 support and monitoring, perform hourly snapshots and daily backups (stored on separate networks), and offer disaster recovery time guarantees. Moving business applications to a hosted cloud model can help mitigate risk. Cloud computing is one of the best things to happen for SMBs — a safe port in the storm.

Deploy Sage applications in the cloud with Sage Partner Cloud | Cloud at Work – with no monthly payments until July 2022. Cloud at Work, an approved Sage Hosting Provider is offering generous incentives to migrate Sage applications to the cloud now. You can now get up to 3 months of free cloud hosting* when you sign up for Sage hosting with Cloud at Work by March 31, 2022. You will receive immediate access to the hosting environment with no monthly payments until July 2022. This offer is available for all Sage applications: Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, Sage HRMS, Sage FAS etc. Get started today, for free, with Cloud at Work’s efficient, cost-effective, and scalable cloud deployment. Contact us directly to learn more about the Sage cloud hosting promotion and pricing options, or inquire with your Sage Business Partner. *Offer expires March 31, 2022. Qualifying businesses must establish a new 2 yr minimum Cloud at Work subscription.

Earlier in this series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you maintain the status quo and took a closer look into the first of those, supply chain challenges. Here we’ll discuss the impacts and dangers a remote workforce presents to an SMB’s technology infrastructure — and how cloud hosting can minimize those risks. What is the current state of remote work, and what does the fall of the office have to do with the rise of cloud technology? The state of work Forty-five percent of full-time US employees worked from home either all or part of the time in Gallup’s September 2021 update of its monthly employment trends. And 91% of them want to keep it that way — so much so that one-third of employees said they’d look for another job if their employer eliminated remote work. The reality is that digital tools such as Excel, Google Docs, video conferencing, virtual whiteboarding, and chat channels like Slack or Workspace have made a worker’s presence in offices less essential. At the same time, though, those digital tools have created or magnified significant technology challenges for employers. We’ve outlined three of those challenges below. Remote workers can be a bit messy There’s mounting evidence that remote workers aren’t as neat as they should be when it comes to risky online behavior. A recent survey from Tessian uncovered some facts that are sure to keep management up at night: Almost 40% indicated their cybersecurity behavior at home differs from what they practice at the office. More than a third admitted to picking up bad cybersecurity practices and using security workarounds while working at home. A majority of remote workers allow household members to access corporate devices for personal use, and 82% of workers admit to reusing passwords. Remote workers are also likely to use their personal devices for work, and they may also run mobile app versions of applications like Microsoft Teams or Zoom that can increase the risk that company data will pass through an insecure environment. Another study found that half of employees have downloaded or installed software not approved by their IT department. The VPN ain’t what is used to be Pre-pandemic, many SMBs relied on VPNs to provide remote access to a subsection of their workforce — typically purchasing enough VPN capacity to serve about 10% of their employees at any one time. Once everyone began working from home, these companies were hard-pressed to buy, install, and configure the additional VPN concentrators needed to keep newly remote workers working. The result? Slow, intermittent connections and frustrated, unproductive workers. In fact, executives in a poll conducted by Tanium in June 2020 named overtaxed VPNs as the second-biggest security challenge they faced as they moved to more distributed workforces. (The number one challenge was identifying new computing devices on the network, as remote workers logged on with their personal devices. More on this below.) An endpoint explosion The number of network endpoints has tripled during the pandemic — and more endpoints mean more risk. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cyberattacks are launched through network endpoints. One remote work security report surveyed security leaders and found that 79% pointed to network access as a top concern for securing a remote workforce. There’s good reason for their concern. A report from KuppingerCole shows that globally in 2020, endpoints connected to the internet experienced 1.5 attacks per minute! Another study by the Ponemon Institute found that 68% of organizations have experienced one or more endpoint attacks that successfully compromised data and/or their IT infrastructure. How cloud can help With an ever-increasing number of network endpoints, slow and over-taxed VPNs, and lax employee security habits, SMBs face a digital crisis. Fortunately, it’s a crisis that can be mitigated through the deployment of cloud technologies. For example, hosting the company’s ERP and other business productivity tools in the cloud minimizes, or even eliminates, the demand on VPN resources. Advanced, cloud-based endpoint protection tools along with multi-factor authentication provide increased security to remote connections. Today’s SMBs are wise to embrace the technology tools that support a remote workforce. Cloud applications provide remote workers with secure, fast, and reliable access to business applications while providing for essential security measures. If you’re considering a move to the cloud, reach out to a member of our cloud consulting team. And stay tuned for our next post in this series where we’ll explore the third risk in maintaining a technology status quo — data security.

To appreciate the scope and impact of the computer chip shortage, you need only consider that everything in your life that has an on/off switch requires one. We’re talking about your phone, car, coffee maker, that Peloton you bought in 2020 — and your company’s computer server. It follows that when semiconductor production slows, so too does the manufacturing and distribution of every device that uses one. To jump straight to the chase here, computer chips that power servers, like the one sitting in your backroom, aren’t readily available. If yours fails, a new one is a long way off. When even Apple can’t lay its hands on a chip, there’s not much hope for SMBs. In the introduction to this series, The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we highlighted five areas of your operation at risk if you don’t take action, promising to look more closely at each area in subsequent posts. Welcome to part one, where we consider how supply chain agility (or in this instance, the lack thereof) is putting your company at risk. It’s not too far of a stretch to say that your business is hanging by a chip. So, how did we get here, where is the danger, and what can SMBs do to ensure business continuity? Plenty of TP, but not a chip in sight We all recall the early pandemic shortages, toilet paper being perhaps the most notorious. Now the big pinch is computer chips/semiconductors. If you haven’t shopped for a new or used car lately, you may not have felt the immediate impacts of the shortage — but it’s real. In addition to the automakers, large tech companies face major supply chain challenges. Apple has lost billions as a result. Microsoft and Samsung report losses too. Even online game players are feeling the effects. How did this all happen? The short story is this. When the pandemic hit, automakers dramatically cut production, ordering fewer semiconductors. In response, semiconductor makers reduced their production rates. Considering that a single modern car can use anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 chips, the ripple effect was enormous. At the same time, a newly remote workforce began gobbling up laptops, notebooks, video devices, consoles, and cabling — not to mention Pelotons. HP’s CEO, Enrique Lores reported that  PC use alone is up more than 20% during the pandemic. Quickly, we were in the perfect supply chain storm of too much demand and not enough products. Out of bargaining chips According to CEOs of major tech companies including Intel, IBM, Extreme, Cisco and Juniper, a shortage of processors and other components could affect the availability and price of IT hardware for at least the next 12 to 18 months. Current lead time on networking equipment is 50-plus weeks. Many manufacturers and other buyers of computer chips have less than five days’ supply on hand. If your server dies, or you need to scale operations, can you wait months for relief? What would being without your critical business management applications cost your business? “The supply chain has never been so constrained in Arista history,” said Jayshree Ullal, CEO of the cloud networking provider Arista. “To put this in perspective, we now have to plan for many components with 52-week lead time.” Mark Dohnalek, president and CEO of Pivot International, a global product development company, sums up the challenge well, “The new way of thinking during this chip shortage has become: if you don’t have it in stock, you don’t have it. This chip shortage has taught us that the only way to succeed is to buy way out in front of demand in order to secure what is needed from the supply chain. Without this security, companies will have a higher risk level of being shut down for periods of time.” The chips are down. It’s time to cash in. In light of the challenges, partnering with a cloud hosting provider who already owns and manages hundreds, thousands, or even millions of servers is a viable busines continuity strategy for SMBs. Cloud services providers have reserve capacity built into their infrastructures, insulating them from the worst of the chip shortage impacts. In addition, they are continually ordering new servers and server components, so the long lead times are less disruptive — they’ve built staggered lead times into their operating models. Plus, cloud providers have buying power that individual SMBs simply do not. When computer distributors do have inventory available, they are selling to big buyers. We often speak of the need for SMBs to build agility into their supply chains, but SMBs get a pass on the chip challenge. Through no fault of your own, the chips are down. All you can do is respond in the most tactical ways. For most SMBs, the best advice is to rely on fewer chips by retiring the office servers and hosting business management applications in the cloud.

The cloud wave is coming. Perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a cloud tsunami. Your business has two options: ride the wave or get crushed by it. And if that weren’t enough, the tide is bearing down on businesses during one of the most uncertain times in recent history. Call it the perfect storm. Surviving the storm requires you to continually move your business technology forward. The forecast is clear: it’s time to move your business management operations to the cloud. In the introduction to this series we’re calling The Cloud Wave: An SMB Imperative, we overview five areas of your operation that are at risk if you retain the status quo. In upcoming posts, we’ll visit each of the five in greater detail — not as a scare tactic, but rather as straight-up advice from technology professionals who’ve seen firsthand the differences between businesses that embrace change and those that ignore it. Five Risks in Maintaining the Status Quo Our team here at Cloud at Work have identified five areas of risk potentially affecting every small and midsized business (SMB). Still,  companies that have not invested in cloud infrastructure are at particular risk. Supply chains lack agility The computer hardware supply chain is in chaos. Hardware lead times can be as much as one year. What if your server dies? The office is (almost) gone Everyone is working remotely, putting added stressors on your technology infrastructure, security, and collaboration. Security is insecure It’s not a matter of if, but when an attack occurs, and cybersecurity insurance carriers have strict new mandates. Inflation is a one-way street Inflation is higher than it’s been in decades. Even if it comes down, computer hardware costs are only going up. The workforce has forever changed The employment landscape has changed in ways no one could have predicted. Attracting and retaining top talent is a permanent challenge for technology laggards. The Experts Have Spoken We’re not alone in our concern for companies that aren’t investing in their business management technologies. Industry research giants like McKinsey, Aberdeen, PwC, and IDC all warn of the threat of obsolescence for companies that don’t invest in IT modernization — and highlight the opportunities for those that do. McKinsey researches note, “Success in the age of digital disruption will belong to companies that digitize their core businesses, launch new business models, and apply state-of-the-art technologies— activities that are possible only with sophisticated IT architectures and well-coordinated technology teams.” Aberdeen research found that when businesses transform their entire IT infrastructure to support the today’s technologies, they see significant benefits, including improved security (60%) and a reduction in regular IT costs (33%). PwC asks, “If not now, when? That’s the question to ask about modernizing your legacy applications. Building and running cloud-native applications frequently contribute to overall improvements in scalability, reliability and cost efficiency.” IDC’s VP of Worldwide Research said, “In today’s digital-first world, business outcomes and innovation are increasingly tied to the ability to develop and use innovative technologies and services anywhere, as quickly as possible. Cloud is the foundation for meeting this need. Entire industries want to intelligently leverage data to their advantage and can do so because they have faster access to digital technologies built on a cloud foundation.” In a recent Forbes article, the CEO of a cloud migration company put it bluntly, “Moving your data and workloads to the cloud is an imperative. Delaying may harm your company’s operational efficiency, while doing serious damage to your competitive edge.” The Risk in Inaction Business as usual is no longer enough. The risk inherent in inaction is too great — and the opportunities associated with cloud technologies are too compelling. We invite you to join us throughout this series. We’ll look more closely at each of the five business stressors, and how migrating all or part of your business management applications to the cloud can help mitigate the risks — and in many cases even turn the risks into opportunities.