Will Parker

Sales Director, accountsIQ

I’m far from alone in being someone stuck away from home over the last 5 days because of the massive disruption to air transport caused by Iceland’s volcanic eruption!

There’s no doubt that from a personal perspective this has proved thoroughly annoying but more importantly from a business perspective if this kind of disruption were to continue for months or even years (as apparently the two volcanoes in question have rumbled away for some time during past eruptions) then European businesses might have to seriously reconsider the way they operate.

We have become very dependent on the ability to jump in a plane whenever we want to and when this is interrupted we’re at a bit of loss of how to operate. However, in every billowing black cloud of ash there may be a bit of a silver lining.

In our case even if I cannot get to the office, then provided I have an internet connection I am up and running in terms of looking at our financials whichever airport, ferry terminal or railway station I find myself marooned at.

Does something like a cloud of volcanic ash, or indeed the heavy snow we had over Christmas and the early part of January, which prevents travel actually give us an opportunity to re-evaluate how much we actually do need to be in a particular location to work. Can we, in fact, become more flexible and work remotely harnessing the power of another, less galling cloud?

I won’t pretend that enquiries on our website have rocketed northwards in the same way as ferry or bus companies have found in the last week, but volumes are definitely up.

Cloud computing is here to stay and we’re keen and ready to help businesses adapt to these changing circumstances.