It goes without saying how cloud technology has revolutionized the way businesses both small and big ones operate these days. In fact, Gartner predicts that cloud will contribute to over 40% of total enterprise technology spending by 2021 across the world.
With such a massive global acceptance, the business landscape can certainly expect for improved and state-of-the-art cloud resources in the near future along with spearheading cloud tech trends. Here are five cloud technology trends that businesses all across the globe ought to keep an eye on:
1. Hybrid cloud is set to takeoff like never before!
Though SMEs (small enterprises) will go for the cloud, it won’t be the same with big players out there. Reason being big players often tend to spend heavily over on-premise IT architecture/resources and only shift or move a part of their critical operations to cloud.
Now this is what will drive the demand for hybrid cloud setting. Yes, a hybrid cloud infra would allow a business to enjoy flexibility minus the perils of exposing its critical business data to third parties. This is one of the top reasons to why an increasing number of cloud solution providers and vendors will shift their focus to hybrid cloud offering to meet the burgeoning demands. For example, now a business can opt to move its inventory management operations to cloud with a SaaS based ERP software.
2. Cloud migration
The most common dilemma faced by businesspeople all over is ‘when should I shift my operations to cloud’. On the other hand, cloud solution providers update their offering and services on a continuous pace, which makes it imperative for businesses on the cloud to keep up with the pace. Not just small businesses, but even the big giants too are moving their key business processes to cloud ecosystem at an alarming pace. Thereby, tech pundits and experts project a steep rise in cloud migration in the next few years.
3. AI to gain grounds!
Artificial intelligence also fondly referred to as ‘AI’ is certainly the hot kid on the block these days reshaping business processes as we see it and cloud is no exception. Yes, talk about intelligent AI-powered CRM and ERP solutions.
Yes, AI will significantly aid the manufacturing businesses to streamline and simplify several routine chores while keep human errors at bay. For example, an AI-powered ERP software can be custom designed to learn and adapt to critical business processes. Such an ERP system can greatly help a manufacturing business in extracting the most out of the monstrous volume of data that the business and its departments generate on a daily basis. This will greatly help in eliminating error-prone routine chores whilst optimizing critical processes. In addition, AI-powered ERP software when meets automation will free employees from the cumbersome admin tasks.
Though still in its infancy stage, AI is anticipated to revolutionize the future generation of cloud based enterprise management systems like CRM, ERP, etc. For example, marketing and sales professionals can expect to witness those mail inboxes schedule and organize on their own. All thanks to AI’s machine learning prowess that would pave way for intelligent recommendations/suggestions on the basis of insightful analytics and past data.
4. Containers are here to stay!
Containers help a software to run in an efficient and reliable manner when moved from one operating platform to the other. Cloud ecosystem has been witnessing a significant spike in the demand and use of containers, since they render operations more portable and efficient. Flexibility and budget-friendly are two driving factors for the rise of this new tech trend. Further, containers will come handy in deploying solutions to solve everyday enterprise management concerns in the near future. Businesses on the other hand can provide secure, efficient and scalable services using containers.
5. Cloud security to become priority
On one hand, we have a stupendous number of organizations that are moving or have already shifted to cloud, whereas on the other hand, there are businesses that still hesitate to make that big leap. Yes, security is the primary concern for such companies. However, since a whooping number of businesses are moving to cloud, data security and protection is something that cloud vendors will focus the most. Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see cloud security taking the center-seat in the near future.
Takeaway
Moving to cloud is becoming a pervasive among businesses to get a competitive edge. Moreover, the flexible, scalable and cost-friendly nature of cloud is gaining a decent traction among a wide range of industries including retail, aviation, manufacturing, automobile, etc. With the raging influx of businesses venturing into the cloud ecosystem, adoption rates are sure to spike up in the near future.
Author bio:
Anwar Shaikh writes about startups, cloud technology, AI, chatbot, analytics and all things technology. A self-trained writer and Digital Marketing Manager, Anwar writes for Sage Software Solutions (P) Ltd. a leading provider of cloud based enterprise management systems such as CRM and ERP software in India.