Photo courtesy of Kei51 on Flickr

Martin and Jason Danner, the father and son behind Arrowrock, an IT services company focused on small businesses, and CloudCandle, an online community dedicated to small business cloud computing, offer their advice for small New Zealand businesses that are considering a cloud computing service.

The Danners offer these tips before a businesses commits to a cloud service provider:

1. Try before you buy!

2. Talk to peers in your industry.

3. Do due diligence.

4. Don’t just replace like for like; look for ways to use the technology to transform your business.

5. Use new technology and cloud computing to create better business processes and increase productivity.

6. Attend CloudCandle Hangouts! We’re doing these in conjunction with the ecentre at Massey University. In June we’re looking at the legal considerations for small businesses and we’re going to have a lawyer come on and discuss the issues.

Martin said the pair’s mission with starting Arrowrock and CloudCandle was to to help small businesses become savvy cloud service consumers.

“Many small business owners are intrigued by cloud computing’s promise of cost savings, increased productivity and reduced IT hassle, but are also wary of moving their critical business systems into the cloud because they don’t have the facts they need to make well-informed decisions,” Martin said. “That’s where CloudCandle comes in.”

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