Has international news ever been more frightening? The world economy, we are told nightly, teeters on the brink. Economies, currencies even potentially governments are one bad decision away from collapse. Fear level is high, solutions much lower. Even close to home the European crisis continues. Infighting, squabbling and a lack of strategy on how to solve the continent’s problems are leaving voters, many of whom have a stake in a successful European economy, concerned.
For business leaders they want, and need, a strong euro and they’re looking for answers.
One might have come from Microsoft international president, Jean-Philippe Courtois, who says he believes the remedy for the Euro crisis might lay in the Cloud, more specifically those who are taking it up.
At the heart of his strategy are the reasons and the sea-change in business attitude fostered by cloud computing. It changes the way business operates, he argues. It is streamlined, flexible and removes the need for a costly infrastructure.
This has made it much easier for small and medium size businesses who take up the cloud to weather the storm and even to grow. They can access IT at a fraction of the cost it was a decade ago. It isn’t in-house any longer, which makes it more cost efficient, but it also allows for the scalable investment, using technology when you need it and finding a solution that’s right for each business.
For Microsoft they believe the cloud is creating a more level playing field. Smaller companies, who in the UK have long relied on innovation and enterprise, can compete with the global multi-nationals when they sell their services through the Cloud. With the right infrastructure and investment, like making finance available, they can use the new technology to help them grow, creating new jobs by securing new investment strands and helping them reach new clients all over the world.
IT, Microsoft believes, is what can save the UK economy. A single market, not one using the Euro, but bound together by the principles of the Cloud. Moving aside the need for geographical boundaries in terms of where knowledge and infrastructure is kept, heralds a more flexible way of doing business and UK forms are thus able to compete much easier, to belay their size and take on the largest companies in the world on a more even ground. Creating more employment would help create a more innovative and powerful industry sector, helping the UK not weather the storm but perhaps extinguish it altogether.
Tags: Business, Crisis, economy, europe, Eurozone, Exchange, hosted services, Microsoft, the Cloud, UK
