How The Pandemic Has Enhanced Cloud Acceptance?

Digital transformation

“Digital transformation” has been a keyword throughout previous years, with SME’s as well as larger corporations moving processes to the cloud and accepting online productivity and collaboration services.

The lockdown and remote working required by the Covid-19 pandemic were an unforeseen reality check for businesses of all sizes. The limitations caused by the pandemic turned the world upside down, with industries like travel and hospitality going out of business and many industries facing survival challenges.

Because of the doubt of the times and the probable realities of the “new normal,” more and more firms are now projecting the course for their journeys toward cloud computing and digital transformation.

Just a few months into the pandemic, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the firm had seen two years of digital transformation in two months as its clients started adopting cloud solutions.

Why did Covid-19 accelerate Digital transformation?

In a sense, the global health crisis is a huge influence for founding the value and flexibility of cloud computing (once again) and led to faster adoption.

This global health crisis has showed to be  an influence  for the cloud market, with a sure surge in cloud adoption internationally across varied industries. According to Gartner, in the result of the Covid-19 disaster, the worldwide end-user expenditure on public cloud services is forecast to grow 18.4% in 2021 to total $304.9 billion.

1. Business resilience

Many of the conversations about cloud computing previously were about current infrastructure for faster innovation, quicker time to market and cost optimization. However, Covid has taken factors like flexible computing power, high accessibility, disaster recovery, lower cost for backup and disaster recovery, strong core for business procedure and business continuity, legacy skill risk, remote workforce management, safe return to the workplace, and business agility into focus to permit for resilient business functions.

2. Digital transformation of business operations

In many cases, business operations have also turned for the socially distanced age as an outcome of amplified demand for e-learning, telemedicine, robotics, composite artificial intelligence (AI), increased reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) scenarios, intelligent chatbots, digital payments, virtual retail experiences, etc.

There’s been an exponential growth in the e-commerce industry as more individuals moved to shopping online, as well as in video-streaming services, with more persons staying home and bereft of other entertainment options. This has led traditional retailers and brick-and-mortar stores to pivot to online ordering, curbside pickup, BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) and home deliveries to preserve their customer base.

3. Remote working

The pandemic and remote working situations have underscored the vitality of the cloud for business continuity with remote workforces and seamless online collaboration.

4. Healthcare investments

The pandemic, caregiving and the urgency to create a vaccine have pushed the healthcare industry to the focus. More and more cloud service providers are now suggesting vertical cloud offerings focused on the healthcare industry. These contributions can influence the cloud for the exact necessities of AI-based research and development, health as well as crisis management while aligning with data protection standards and HIPPA compliance.

5. Online education

With world-wide lockdowns, many schools and universities transitioned to online course delivery and operations almost instantly. The education industry embraced the cloud to conduct and develop tuition, evaluations and entry examinations. Even the niche yet growing EdTech sector saw a rush in scale and responded with broader services and contributions.