In the wake of lockdown across the world, many businesses anticipated that their cloud migration projects would be delayed. Our survey found 67% of IT-leading respondents expected a delay to their active projects, citing economic repercussions of the pandemic.
However, as we adjust to our ‘new normal’, concerns about project progression and delays to cloud migration aren’t so clear-cut. As people gradually return to work, coupled with an increasing requirement to work flexibly and have greater business resilience – we may instead expect cloud migration projects to be accelerated. The acceleration in cloud migration shows no signs of abating, the global cloud computing market is set to reach $295 billion by 2021 – a growth of 12.5% from 2019.
The acceleration in cloud projects will, in part, be determined by how far organisations are in their digital transformation journey. For those that have already been embracing cloud-based platforms and systems, this would have been an easy shift. For those relying on legacy infrastructure, the move to remote working may have encountered some large roadblocks.
The growing public awareness of an organisation’s ability to respond to changes in customer service needs, homeworking and supply chain resilience may lead to an acceleration in migration to the cloud. With the prolonged economic impact of the pandemic, organisations will be looking at cost saving, which cloud migration may be a component.
Another factor businesses will need to consider is reassessing their infrastructure. While a lot of companies rushed to adapt to remote working and using collaborative solutions, rationalising the infrastructure and considering security wasn’t necessarily examined in full. This means companies will need to re-assess what their ‘new normal’ infrastructure looks like and further fine tune it.
Changing consumer trends will also affect this decision, as physical premises may become less of a priority due to a focus on online interactions. Traffic to sites will also be a factor, such as whether current workloads can be handled by the existing network infrastructure.
Our 2020 study highlights that organisations have already started to prioritise the migration of customer facing functions (such as CRM and customer service) to the cloud and we can expect this trend to continue.
Ultimately, cloud adoption will carry on expanding as businesses embrace flexibility and ease of remote access, driven by the challenges of today.
To learn more about how your business can thrive in change, specifically with cloud migration projects, read our recent survey on 2020 cloud trends and our guide how to unlock the true value of your cloud migration now.
André Quicheron, Global Strategic Partnerships Director
Andre Quicheron
15 September 2020
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