Why Produce is a Perfect Fit for Cloud Computing
At Zumasys, we love working with businesses that have a story to tell. We want to become a part of their stories as much as we want them to become a part of ours. We love working with produce companies because they each have a unique story and distinctive culture, and often a family legacy. A story about real people making a real impact in the world they live in.
What’s at stake
The produce industry is unique in that a small office of 20 people can be responsible for a huge amount of revenue—often surpassing $100M each year. I have yet to find a larger revenue-per-employee ratio in any other industry. Because produce companies generate so much revenue per day, the cost of a business system going down is particularly impactful for them.
Whether you’re a seasonal company generating most of your annual revenue in just a few months or a year-round packer-shipper, the impact of downtime at any point during the season can be devastating. Add branch locations or remote coolers with people logging into your systems from across the country, and the ramifications of a Famous server going down increase exponentially.
Uptime is everything
The fact is, uptime for produce companies of every size is as important to them as it is for a bank or any other large-scale corporation. The capital required to purchase the equipment to ensure that your core applications are always available ranges from $100K to $500K. And that investment recurs every three to five years. Over the past decade, I have met only a handful of produce companies who have any interest in purchasing a quarter of a million dollars in computer equipment. Nor do they have any interest in managing that level of technology. Yet they cannot suffer downtime. So what’s the answer?
Enter cloud computing
Now produce companies can completely eliminate large capital expenses on IT, moving instead to a much smaller monthly operational expense. They have access to the same technology that banks and credit card companies use to ensure that they never go down. With the cloud, the service provider assumes the burden of all IT investments, maintenance, and management. They also invest in buildings with multiple layers of physical and virtual security to house and protect the data. IT becomes a service that’s always on when you need it.
Why produce is perfect for the cloud
Businesses in all industries across the globe are moving to outsourcing their infrastructure to the cloud. But few industries can benefit so directly and so perfectly from the cloud as the produce industry. Produce companies don’t want to be in the business of IT, they want to stay 100% focused on the quality of their products. The technology referred to today as “cloud” (it’s a new name for an old thing—we called it “hosting” just a few years ago) can give you the dependability, performance, and cost efficiency to ensure that your systems are always available, all the time, no matter what. The cloud allows a produce company to take advantage of the most powerful disaster recovery and high availability technology available, without becoming IT experts.
Why Zumasys
At Zumasys, we specialize in helping produce companies of every size transition their infrastructure and applications to the cloud. With more than 50 produce companies on our cloud platform and 150 produce customers nationwide, no one understands the IT challenges of your industry better than we do. We have over a decade of experience developing customized IT solutions that help produce companies lower costs and provide 24/7 availability of critical systems and applications so they never miss an order.
Working with produce companies has been a wonderful experience for us, and we will continue to serve your industry for many years to come. If you want to know more about how cloud might fit in your world, please pick up the phone and give us a call today. We would be honored to become a part of your story.