The hype around the cloud lasted for more than a decade—a very long time for the hype-filled IT industry. Now, however, it’s seen as the vehicle for digitalisation. Any organization without a cloud computing strategy will miss the beginning of the new digital era.
So what exactly do they need to do to avoid that scenario? Well, firstly, they shouldn’t underestimate the cloud. Here’s why:
Each new technological innovation usually goes through a period of intense hype followed by disillusionment. Only the most persistent remain, and if they’re successful, this leads to a ‘slope of enlightenment’. At this stage, the benefits of the technology crystallize, and the first, second and third-generation products emerge. More adventurous firms fund pilots while conservative companies remain cautious. Until, finally, mainstream adoption begins.
According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, which measures this process, cloud computing is about to enter the mainstream, with Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service plus (IaaS+) already there. Yet while cloud innovators are steaming ahead, organizations failing to harness the cloud are lagging behind. One Gartner study found that less than a third of firms have a documented cloud strategy.
The cloud services industry clears the clouds
Gartner says that firms need cloud-related services, such as cloud consulting, implementation, migration, and managed services to move to public clouds. The technology research firm expects 28 percent of spending in key IT segments to shift to cloud-based services by 2022.
Deutsche Telekom B2B EU is part of this rapidly evolving industry. Most recently, we partnered with Microsoft to provide standardized cloud acceleration services for the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform across nine countries—from Poland to Greece. The automated services will enable companies to adopt the cloud within minutes, saving customers 30 to 50 percent of IT operations costs, compared with on-premise solutions. It was the next step in our strategic partnership with Microsoft (announced in 2018) and shows how sophisticated cloud services have become.
But firms have work to do, too
Companies also need to understand what they need to bring to the table. Cloud providers can reduce a lot of the burden of implementing and managing cloud computing but not everything. Gartner warns, for example, that through 2020, 95 percent of security issues will be caused not by infrastructure providers, but by clients themselves. So, companies need well-informed technology product managers who are also competent partners for cloud-related service providers. But building up internal cloud skills is a challenge.
So cloud remains a tantalizing, but relatively untraveled, road. And this is no different from other “Next Big Things”. For you and your business, it’s therefore important to not only know what you need to know but also who in the industry can help you. Watch this space!