Protection against cybercrime has a cost, and as a business owner, you need to optimize the return on money you spend on the company. With a little strategic thinking, you can convert security expenses into investments in your capacity to market, expand into new territories or verticals, attract and retain employees, and strengthen customer relationships. How can security solutions do all that?

• Moving security from cost center to capacity builder. Updating security brings with it a range of ways to do more for your business. For example, the transition to cloud storage offers additional opportunities for growth. It fosters mobility, which means you can be where the business needs you to be instead of where your data is stored. It’s easier to share information and exchange ideas with strategic partners, vendors, employees who are off-site, and customers. Your company can even experiment with hiring new staff members in other locations, either to gain access to the best talent available anywhere or to test the waters as you consider expansion into new geographic markets.
• Using collaboration to leverage competitive opportunities. You may uncover opportunities to revisit your operating model and team dynamics once you transition to the cloud. Increased broadband speed serves not only to meet file uplink requirements, but also to develop a more collaborative environment. That culture shift can have an impact in several ways. One familiar scenario involves a member of your staff being notified by a vendor of an upcoming price change or anticipated shortage of a part or product on which your business depends. Acting on the information requires input from senior management as well as the finance and inventory departments. You may even want to sound out your biggest clients to get a sense of how upcoming demand will mesh with supply.
• Coupling scalability and sustainability for success. Work at the front end to get the most out of your investment in cloud storage and security offers a potential return on that investment that could have a significant impact on your company and its ability to remain competitive for the long term. With that in mind, it’s worth evaluating broadband speed options in terms of file sharing capabilities as well as uplink speed requirements. By approaching your solution upgrade in this manner, you position your business to sustain innovation, achieve faster time to market with new products or services, and promote a greater sense of ownership and accountability among employees.

It’s not that security solutions include features that directly address those business needs. But implementing a robust solution requires investments in infrastructure. A successful transition to cloud storage and security depends on increased broadband speeds that allow accelerated uplinks and access to data. And once your small business makes those cloud and broadband commitments, it opens the door to potentially disruptive changes to your company, its business plan, and its prospects.

Read the Security Solutions That Scale to Your Growth Plans guide to learn more about how updating security solutions can help you optimize your business.