What “cloud” actually means at SMB scale
For most UK SMBs, “the cloud” means three things in practice: Microsoft 365 for productivity, hosted desktops where they’re genuinely needed, and Microsoft Azure for the bits that don’t fit elsewhere, line-of-business apps, server workloads that haven’t been replaced by SaaS, file storage that needs more control than SharePoint gives.
The mistake most businesses make is treating cloud as a single product to buy rather than a set of choices to make. A proper cloud setup for a 20-person consultancy looks nothing like one for a 40-person construction firm running specialist software. The work is in the design, what runs where, how it integrates, what it costs, what happens when it breaks, and that’s where I focus.
Hosted desktops, when they make sense
There’s a stretch of the market where hosted desktops genuinely solve a problem: businesses running line-of-business software that doesn’t have a modern web equivalent, businesses with hybrid teams that need the exact same desktop wherever they log in, businesses with regulatory requirements around data location that need a controlled desktop environment.
For those businesses, a hosted desktop is the right answer. I provision them on Microsoft Azure or via specialist hosted-desktop providers depending on what the workload calls for, get the line-of-business software properly installed and licensed, and manage the environment ongoing as part of a retainer.
For most general office work in 2026, though, hosted desktops are overkill. Windows 11 plus Microsoft 365 plus modern device management gives you a better experience for most workers. I’ll tell you straight whether your business actually needs hosted desktops or whether you’d be better served by a more modern setup.
Migrations done carefully
Cloud migrations go wrong when they’re treated as a single technical event rather than a project. I plan migrations in stages: discovery (what’s running on your existing infrastructure, who uses it, when), design (what each workload should look like in the cloud, what the cost looks like, what the integration plan is), execution (in waves, with rollback plans), and stabilisation (where the new setup runs alongside the old until everyone’s confident).
Backup gets the same treatment. A backup setup is only worth what its last successful tested restore was worth. I configure 3-2-1 backup, three copies, two different media types, at least one offsite, with regular tested restores documented. If you’ve never actually restored from your current backup, we should probably do that first.