The ultimate plug ‘n play

In next to no time ‘the cloud’ has become all about cost-saving, speed, flexibility and security; the new norm for businesses.

The cloud is approaching electricity status. Need computing power? Switch it on and it’s there for as long or as short a period as you want.
Remember the fears about security of your data in the cloud? Now the cloud, especially around Christchurch and Wellington, is sold as being the better option when it comes to business continuity.
Yet, if you think back five years, many small businesses were likely to have managed accounts on a spreadsheet, held receipts in a shoebox, and paid a lot of money to an accountant/ book-keeper to have, what is now a reasonably simple task of book balancing, completed.  Even if the business had an accounting service to partially automate the accounts, like the original MYOB or a Cashbook system, it still had to hold all of that data on its computers or laptops.  
There might have been a backup onto tapes or something similar, but for most business owners a belief that its own computers were the most secure option for its business information would not have been up for debate – until there was a burglary, fire or natural disaster.
How quickly we’ve adapted. And how quickly those who saw the cloud’s potential have realised it and persuaded legions to follow. Some even claim the long-promised ‘paperless office’ is finally here.
If you believe the cloud is still too ‘woolly’ and remain sceptical, prepare to be convinced. Prepare to hear how it has created hugely successful businesses who took the leap of faith. Our own Xero is already a global phenomenon.
In a nutshell, cloud-based services allow small and medium enterprises (SMEs) access to IT infrastructure, technology and technology based services they could not access previously. Generally costs are lower; in many areas there are no binding, long-term contracts; software is constantly updated to match changing technology and legislation. What more could you want?
Take recruiting staff. Video interviewing and recruitment management is one very significant area undergoing change.
“As the owner of a local SME, it is even more important each of your employees is the best you could possible hire. In larger companies each individual represents a smaller proportion of the total company output and each employee is, usually, more specialised,” says former naval commander, now Australasian business development and operations executive for TalentBox, David Simpson. “Employees of SMEs have to have a broader set of skills and make a bigger individual difference to the bottom-line.”
He describes TalentBox as a cloud-based, digital interview, social media-geared, candidate management system, with video tech at its core – a mouthful, he apologises for.
“Firstly, you can record a video of you talking to the candidates, explaining who you are, your company and what makes you, the employer, different. This is all about you and your company selling your ‘Employer Value Proposition’.
“Next is the digital interview. What we want to achieve is getting you the answers you need to critical questions about the prospective candidate. Even more than answers, we want you to get to know the candidate.”
“Of course, what makes it really powerful are the video responses. Asking a candidate why they want to work for you, or even getting them to pitch you a straight sell, is the best way to get away from resumé fluff. Not the paper version; the real version. How they speak, how they present, are they a cultural fit, are they confident?
“The result? No messy first-round interviews where you know instantly they are not right. No spam applications, as the applicant has to apply effort to complete the application. You get the information you need to pick the best applicant: not data,” Simpson says.
How about speeding up the training of supermarket and other till operators and slashing the costs thereof?
Enter Posboss. “Till systems range from archaic to state-of-the-art,” says CEO Jonny McKenzie. “They tend to be finicky and all are different. So when new people come aboard, they can take a number of days to get up to speed.
“Now, by having SaaS products in place, new employees can login and start work quickly, meaning a shorter time an owner/manager needs to be concerned about their abilities and how that might impact on customers.
“Posboss allows hospitality businesses real insight to their trading, and accessibility of reporting that would otherwise be very difficult to manage. Portability is a key feature; running as it does on an iPad and Internet connection.  
“Previously, with the older systems, an SME owner would have to have invested thousands of dollars and it would probably have involved a long contract too. Cloud-based products like ours provide the freedom of operating anywhere and on a lighter, leaner scale,” explains McKenzie.

This ‘big little thing’
The above is a constant refrain from the cloud adopters. So you might not be expecting the world’s premier software company to be amongst them. Cue Microsoft’s server and tools lead, Brad Borrows.
“People who work in IT appreciate more than most, perhaps, just how fast technology is moving these days. As one who has worked in this business for more than 20 years, I believe the rate of change this industry has experienced in the past year is nothing short of mind-blowing. It is all about ‘this big little thing’ called ‘cloud services’.
“Our always-on, always-connected lifestyles mean our to-do lists never stop growing. This means the ability to be productive and access essential resources, wherever we are, has never been more important,” says Borrows.
Since many of us have already moved to the cloud in our personal lives – checking email, storing photos, sharing content and managing simple everyday tasks (banking, shopping etc.) from a variety of devices – it is natural SMEs would demand the same in business, he says.
“Here, the ‘nirvana’ offered by cloud-services means being able to move resources back and forth online, control costs and respond to internal business requests within minutes.
“Working in the cloud means your business tools are always up-to-date, flexible, responsive, and secure. Take Microsoft’s Office product. It’s estimated that one in seven people on the planet use Office for their everyday computing needs. Now available in the cloud as Office 365, it allows you to work, with the same familiar Microsoft Office tools, across multiple devices, in any location. Above all, it’s cost-effective – great news for any business,” Borrows says.
For SMEs just starting to think about using cloud services, he believes it’s critical to have a roadmap in place for migrating to the cloud.
“But first it’s important to get trusted advice on which private cloud solution will allow you the flexibility to bring in public cloud services and manage both as one.  After that the challenge every business will face, in the future, is keeping pace with the new features and services becoming available online.”
One of the companies which can help you in that sphere is Engine Room, established in 2001 to “support local SMEs and help them achieve their goals”.  Over the past decade the business has grown into a vibrant team of accountants and business coaches, based out of Pukekohe and Tauranga.  
Engine Room is a Xero Platinum Partner and two-time winner of the 100 percent Xero award, so it follows it is one of New Zealand’s leading Xero accounting firms, and is well aware of the benefits that the cloud brings.
“The cloud’s ability to give you regular, real-time information and share it among different users allows you to see what’s happening in your business right now, rather than looking back to the previous year,” says Margaret Holmes, Engine Room’s CEO.  
“This means it’s easier to understand what’s going on today and make smart business decisions for tomorrow.”
Despite its muscular, male brand, Engine Room has a largely female staff, with a (nice touch) male office manager. Holmes says the staff gender composition was “both calculated and accidental”.
“Xero is at the forefront of accounting technology with over 300,000 users worldwide. It has really made other software providers in the business-to-business sector lift their game, while having the advantage of being conceived and established on a cloud-base.”
In addition, Xero works with a number of software partners to provide ‘add on’ software  linking directly with it, providing faster, easier solutions for everything from mobile employees and job management to invoicing, job-costing and even property management. Being ‘implementation partners’ for many of the ‘add-on’ solutions, Engine Room helps SME owners select and implement the right solution.
“We are strong advocates of cloud computing and partner with a number of these software companies to provide a complete cloud package for our clients. The sector is evolving so quickly that a business which couldn’t find the right solution two years ago is very likely to find one now,” says Holmes.

NZ’s first personal cloud
Ignore rumours to the contrary; the cloud is not just an Auckland-based phenomenon. A group of Wellington entrepreneurs have joined forces to build New Zealand’s first ‘personal cloud’.
Data247 is designed to provide Kiwis with an accessible and affordable online back-up service to ensure valuable files and data remain safe. “45 million times this year alone files will be lost forever,” claims  Data247 co-founder and CEO, Brett Hawthorne. “That’s hundreds of photos, conversations, calendars and more, gone in an instant.”
Apparently, only one in four people currently back up their information regularly.
“People think their computers, phones or tablets are reliable,” says Hawthorne. “In reality, they’re not – it’s not a question of if a piece of technology fails, it’s when. And when it does, all the important information stored on that device can be destroyed.
The Data247 founders have made it their mission to develop an affordable and user-friendly personal cloud that means users never need worry about data safety again.
“People should back up once a day, or more, but the common excuses for not doing so include ‘I don’t have time’; ‘it’s too complicated’; and ‘it’s too expensive’. But when data is lost, regardless of the cause (computer virus, hardware or software problems, or other malfunction) it is typically unrecoverable,” he says.
The recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Wellington highlight the importance of backing up, says Hawthorne.
Data247 users can back-up by file type, such as business records, photos, documents, music, videos and mail. All they need to do is identify what is important and the software will find it and back it up no matter where it is on their PC.
Technical skills are not required, he says, simply because Data247 backs up all user data whenever they are online. There’s not even any need to monitor specific folders or drives as any additional files are automatically backed up too.
What sets Data247 apart is that all data never leaves New Zealand – it’s held in Orcon’s Data Centre in Auckland. Data247 claims to solve the problems most New Zealander’s had previously – with online back-up being costly because of having monthly data caps.

Payroll in the cloud
When it comes to big data storage Datacom is up there with the best, and yes, it offers cloud solutions. Datacom claims to be New Zealand’s largest PAYE intermediary, and its cloud applications are connected into the banking network. “This means when the application has calculated the payroll for your staff and you have approved it, all the banking will happen automatically,” says their marketing manager, Justin Cheong.
“We recommend choosing a simple and low-cost cloud payroll application. Don’t underestimate the costs of upgrades and testing which are nonexistent for cloud-based systems, where you are always accessing the latest version of the software.
“Not all cloud providers are created equal. Look for a dependable provider with a proven track record with local business. You’ll want them to be around when the government makes their next lot of changes – usually in an election year – and you’ll want them to understand what those changes mean.
“Especially ask where your data is hosted and what plans they have in case of a disaster. A cloud provider should be able to present evidence of their disaster recovery strategy and the regular tests they perform. They should have redundant servers in different locations so that if one location was affected, they could easily switch to another.”
The final word on cloud services comes from Crystal Payroll, which set out to be amongst the first to design an online payroll system, from the get-go, launched in April 2006.
MD Kelvin Chen: “We offer service choices to appeal to the DIY Kiwi SME business person who wants to retain control over the PAYE relationship with the IRD and perhaps feels more comfortable paying the staff himself. Accordingly, we offer a range of outsourcing options, from self-service, through an add-on PAYE service and/or a bureau service, right through to full bureau, where we do it all.
“It’s all about listening to our customer’s needs. An important factor for us is ensuring our customers are able to easily transfer their payroll data into their accounting systems. This is easy with the likes of Xero, our preferred online accounting partner, but we also have a long, and growing, list of other online/offline accounting systems we can export data to.”
Clearly, flexibility is one of the great features of the cloud.

Kevin Kevany is an Auckland-based freelance writer.
Email [email protected]

Bringing cloud software to market
Got a great cloud idea needing some work to bring to market?
Touchtech Workshop (TW) is a $600 development session people can hook into to see if their idea is viable, original and marketable. If it is they come out the other end with a great business plan and actionable support from the company.  
Attending a TW also gives aspiring entrepreneurs “a taste of what development of a SaaS (software-as-a-service) actually involves, without sinking their life-savings into a project”.
If they go ahead as a supplier, the $600 goes towards professional fees for the joint venture.
In some instances, Touchtech could come on board and create a JV, with sweat equity from both parties, which would get the product to market a lot faster without having to do an entry level funding round. Once the product is built at very low cost, the JV partners can then enter their first funding round to bring the product to market.  
Funding options now include equity crowdfunding.