The COVID-19 pandemic: A year on in the cloud industry

Cloudreach’s head of strategy, product and marketing reflects on how a year of dealing with the pandemic has impacted the cloud industry

Over the past year, life as we know it has changed dramatically and a new normal has been established. Yet as the outside world was slowing down, the world of cloud computing was significantly speeding up, beyond what any of us could have predicted.

The global pandemic in 2020 ensured the cloud sector saw a huge impact on the pace and scale of enterprise cloud adoption. A surge in remote working and home-schooling saw cloud spending rocket by 37 per cent, hitting $29 billion during the first quarter of 2020.

Many organisations had cloud migration in their sights, but once the pandemic hit, these plans were accelerated. In fact, more than a quarter (27.5 per cent) of IT leaders surveyed in a recent Cloudreach-sponsored IDC study* agreed that large-scale cloud migrations were "essential for business survival".

What we've also seen is the need for enterprises to embrace the cloud and accelerate their digital transformation. The study reveals that 29.5 per cent of businesses have accelerated their digital transformation (DX) plans within the past 10 months.

Digital transformation

Cloud has been a saviour for many companies over the past year, from retailers shifting to e-commerce, to office workers working from home. Yet the demand for cloud solutions is still growing. Organisations will need to prepare for future continuity events and ongoing digital transformation.

Over the coming years, we will see companies rely on their cloud infrastructure and platform service providers more than ever, after the expected removal of physical datacentres and humans from the supply chain. In the ‘new normal', we're set to see 85 per cent of companies focus their efforts on streamlining and standardising IT, with 78 per cent moving to automate labour-intensive processes.

With IT in mind, this sector has been one of the most significantly hit affected the pandemic. We all understood the importance of cloud technology before, but it's only been within the last year that it has been more prominent than ever. It has helped us all stay connected when we needed it the most.

Crucially, this has elevated the role of the chief information officer across many enterprises. The IDC research revealed that 45 per cent of CIOs said that the pandemic has improved their relationships with business leaders and changed the focus of IT from being a cost centre to a business-enabler. More than half (55 per cent) claim it has increased their scope of influence across the business, and has given them a seat in the boardroom and the opportunity to digitally transform the business.

As we look to 2021 and beyond, we expect to see more companies take advantage of the cloud as they continue their digital transformation. As well as this, we're also set to see an uptake in DevOps, which is something that cloud service provider, Cloudreach now offers via a subscription-based ‘as a service' model. We're sure to see an increase in usage on this, with experts helping organisations accelerate cloud and DevOps initiatives.

*Study of 200 IT leaders conducted by IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Cloudreach, in December 2020.