Throw Away the Filing Cabinets and Embrace the Cloud

Real estate brokers and agents still storing important documents in giant office filing cabinets are drastically falling behind the times. As technology improves, so is the way agents and brokers keep documents organized. Realtors worldwide are throwing away their bulky filing cabinets and embracing the cloud.

Cloud?

Cloud storage is the most efficient way to store and access your important documents and files. Instead of saving that important lead report on your PC or tucking it away in a cumbersome filing cabinet, files are saved digitally and can be accessed from any device with an internet connection and a web browser.

Cloud storage is changing the real estate game. The National Association of Realtors just invested $3 million to improve their cloud storage capabilities and 80 percent of businesses reported seeing improvement after just six months of changing over operations to cloud-storage.

But small operations enjoy benefits, as well. A poll of over 1,200 small businesses conducted by technology giant CDW discovered:

"...cloud users cite cost savings, increased efficiency and greater innovation as key benefits" and that "...across all industries, storage and conferencing and collaboration are the top cloud services and applications."

Almost every area of business is adapting this technology.

Advantages:

Brokerss storing their files on the cloud have a serious advantage over those still using physical documents. Technologically savvy and forward thinking brokershave been taking advantage of cloud-storage options for years.

You can search for and through documents to find what you need quickly, saving valuable time. Sharing documents with clients no longer requires a visit to the fax machine or scanner, because documents on the cloud can be easily shared through email or links.

Cloud storage makes collaboration easy; larger teams of agents can all share and work off documents. Because you can accesses files on any device with an internet connection, a dead laptop won't get in the way of getting important files to clients.

This saves agents and brokers a lot of time, money, and headaches.

Safety should always be a concern when doing business online and agents should always try to keep client information sensitive and private. Cloud storage is one of the safest ways to store sensitive information, 50 percent of the U.S. government servers and 64 percent of banking activity is in the cloud. It is a safe and effective tool.

Disadvantage

Because the real estate business is such a document-intensive industry, agents hold onto a lot of paperwork. This can be an issue because most companies who provide cloud-storage have very strict limits. Even their premium packages do not offer unlimited storage, which can be costly for agents with large workloads or like holding on to all their documents. Some unlimited storage packages can cost upwards of $24,000 a year.

Solution:

An agent or broker looking for the best bang for their buck should look for a service that offers both unlimited storage and some way to manage and track documents. This service should include a quick search function, mobile phone access, filtering and activity tracking.

Adapting cloud-storage to your business can save you time and allow you to be more efficient in real estate activities but Just sure to find an option that works for your needs.

Has you business adopted a form of cloud storage? If not, what are some of your reservations? Leave a comment below.

To view the original article, visit the Realty Commander blog.