If you’re an SME owner wondering how cloud-based services can transform your business, you’ve come to the right place. According to Parallels SMB (Small and Medium Businesses) Cloud Insights for Global Markets 2016™, the market for Cloud services is expected to grow to $125 billion by 2016. 67% of the share will be of business applications and Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers. For SMEs, cloud offers a smarter and leaner technology option that limits cost and multiplies productivity. Cloud offers many straightforward benefits to SMEs – improved data security, reduced downtime, flexible storage, CRM management, resource optimization, and remote computing to name some. As a business owner, you’re constantly searching for ways to stay relevant and maximize profit without compromising on quality, cost, and efficiency – Cloud offers you a promising solution to meet all these goals! Let’s dive right in and explore some of the advantages of cloud migration for your business:

What is cloud security? Preparing your business for future success starts with switching from on-premises hardware to the cloud for your computing needs. The cloud gives you access to more applications, improves data accessibility, helps your team collaborate more effectively, and provides easier content management. While it is natural for you to have reservations about switching to the cloud due to security concerns, rest assured that a reliable cloud service provider (CSP) will keep your data safe with highly secure cloud services. Cloud security, also known as cloud computing security, consists of a set of policies, controls, procedures, and technologies that work together to protect cloud-based systems, data, and infrastructure. These security measures are configured to protect cloud data, support regulatory compliance, protect customers’ privacy, and set authentication rules for individual users and devices. From authenticating access to filtering traffic, cloud security can be configured to the exact needs of the business. Since these rules can be configured and managed in one place, administration overheads are reduced and IT teams are empowered to focus on other areas of the business. That being said, let’s explore the advantages that cloud security offers to your business!

Cloud computing is continually transforming the way companies store, use, and share data, workloads, and software. The volume of cloud utilization around the globe is increasing, leading to a greater mass of sensitive material that is potentially at risk. There are several benefits of cloud computing, which are driving more firms and individuals to the cloud. The benefits include low costs, improved employee productivity, and faster time to market to name a few. Regardless of the phenomenal advantages, saving a firm’s workloads to a cloud service that is publicly hosted exposes the organization to new data security risks which cause unease for some firms’ IT departments and clients. In addition, work from home has pushed more organizations to the cloud and is increasing usage by those already there. That widespread adoption makes cloud more of a target for attackers, and the rapid pace of the transition to remote work has left some security gaps in their wake. So, what are the security risks around cloud computing and how can you mitigate them? To answer that question, let’s go through some of the biggest cloud threats and overview potential solutions.

In the last blog, we delved into the concept of the hidden factory and revealed how it can prove detrimental to your business. In this blog, we’ll take a close look at what the hidden factory looks like in action, the benefits of uncovering it, and how you can overcome its menace.

In the world of manufacturing, efficiency is the single most effective parameter and KPI to measure the capabilities, competence, and expertise of an operator. An operator with higher efficiency manufactures more high quality products than an operator with lower efficiency in the same time period. When operators function at peak performance levels, the manufacturing cost of the factory goes down. Better operator performance also enables managers to interpret and boost the performance of their shop floor employees more effectively by identifying inefficiencies, enhancing the quality of training and data collection strategies, and scaling visibility into shop floor activities. Measuring and increasing the efficiency of operators and equipment on the shop floor turbocharges manufacturing productivity and output significantly. That being said, let us first explore the method used to calculate machine operator efficiency before we delve deeper!

Manufacturing is considered the heart of any country. The ever-growing industry deals with a lot of data every day. Yet fail to get the maximum out of it due to lack of relevant technology. Data unused is of no use as this can cause some serious challenges. Without data, it is hard to pick patterns, understand trends, plan for improvement and reduce costs. Every piece of data needs proper analysis to make smart decisions leading to the robust growth of a company. With traditional and manual processes unable to meet the growing needs of manufacturers to manage data, companies have turned their eyes toward advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Robotic Process Automation, Cloud, Mobile Applications, etc. Of the all, AI and IoT have a lot of applications in the Manufacturing industry. This post will walk you through AI benefits and use cases. If you’re someone considering AI for improving your manufacturing operations and efficiency, this post is exclusively for you. Let’s discuss AI’s benefits and use cases in manufacturing, especially shop floor – which is considered as the core of the manufacturing.

According to the reports, many manufacturers have reported high employee attrition rates post-Covid-19 impact. Generally, employees’ churn rate is high for those companies where employees don’t have enough opportunities to grow, fear cultural change, or lack safety standards in the environment. In the case of the Manufacturing industry, fear of cultural change and safety challenges top the list. Also, if the employees can’t perform to their potential, this can impact their morale and make them decide against the company. So, retaining the employees is a must, and manufacturers must rethink their strategy and planning to engage and reduce employee attrition rates. Of the different techniques to achieve this, modernizing the shop floor is considered a killer option to engage and improve employee performance. Here, in this post, I will detail how modernizing your shop floor operations will improve employee morale, efficiency, and engagement to take your manufacturing business to the next level. Before getting started, it is a must to understand how a shop floor operates and what challenges employees face.