Fax is one of the original technologies playing an important role in modern business. Invented before the telephone in the 1840s, fax cemented its importance in business and was popularised in the 1970s. It has always been a vital tool for enterprise level businesses, as it allows them to share and evaluate high volumes of information, often found in highly confidential legal documents.
Today, fax is a staple of business that has been revolutionised by the integration of cloud-based technology. IDG Cloud Computing Survey 2020 reported that enterprises’ average cloud spending is up 59% from 2018 to 2020 and 54% of enterprises’ cloud-based applications were moved from on-premise to the cloud. The clear trend of moving from on-premise to the cloud is one that now encompasses fax. Used in business for over one hundred years, fax has received new life with the progression to cloud-based services, and the subsequent improvements to capability, security, cost and efficiency.
Online cloud fax services remove the need for old on-premise servers and paper fax machines, drastically improving efficiency and accessibility by allowing users to fax anytime from anywhere by using a mobile device.
Cloud-based digital fax is much more secure than its on-premise predecessor. Faxes are encrypted before being sent directly to email inboxes. eFax uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) and state-of-the-art data centres to ensure fax receives the highest level of protection. It also removes the fundamental issue of shared fax machines often stacking unattended fax copies available for anyone to see.
Cloud fax is much cheaper, as there are no unexpected, ongoing costs, such as maintenance, upgrades, capacity expansion or redundancy, that are regularly incurred with on-premise systems. It eliminates soft costs such as paper, toner, and removes the storage and disposal fees associated with paper faxes. A significant reduction in cost is very beneficial to companies that face turbulent markets and exist within an economy in recession.
The switch from on-premise to cloud-based fax is clear, with transformative benefits across the board making it a no-brainer. Cloud’s dominance among enterprises will continue to grow on the steep trajectory that it is currently on – 32% of total IT budgets will be allocated to cloud computing in the next year (IDG 2020). Greater platform and service flexibility, security, disaster recovery, and reductions in cost, are the main drivers for why IT leaders are investing in cloud-based technology and moving their on-premise systems to the cloud. Cloud-based fax, an original staple of business for many years, enables enterprises to reap the rewards of digital transformation too.