By Dr. Christopher Richard, MD & Chief Cloud Architect, G7 CR Technologies India Pvt Ltd
The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly and unexpectedly. We as human beings want to feel we’re in control of our own existence. In some ways we are but in so many ways we’re not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence and despite that, businesses need to not only survive but succeed. Business are going to fail if decision makers don’t make the right decisions and work with some certainty that the world is unpredictable, and we always need to be prepared for the unexpected. The Current Covid-19 crises is a good example for the unpredictability of the world we live in and the businesses who work with a mindset of making the right decisions will not only survive but will also succeed.
Cloud has been around for decades, working from home would have saved a lot of wasted travelling hours and would have reduced pollution, accidents and also significantly reduced business overhead costs and yet very few were ready to do it. Post COVID-19, now most companies, big and small have decided to do what they should have been doing almost a decade ago i.e., move employees to work from home, by giving them secure and controlled desktops hosted in the cloud.
While reputed cloud OEMs are struggling to stay on top and cater to the unprecedented demand, be it for machines on the cloud or collaboration, education and communication apps are now hungry for scaling as they continue to see adaption and consumption growth. With the ease of setup, its cost-effectiveness with pay as you use model, and secure and scalable Software, platform and Infrastructure resources readily being available, cloud brings to COVID-19 situation war room the ability to keep businesses function and ensure you have your people continue to be productive from anywhere, with just an internet connection and any device that has a browser.
In the past few months, cloud has seen many companies, big and small like TCS, make decisions not only on the current use of cloud technology to work from home, but also planning to make it a permanent feature. It is estimated that due to this global impact of COVID-19, the cloud market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% by 2021.
For mature Business today, it is not just about giving an employee a laptop to work from home, it is also about control and security over this device in the world where data theft, ransom ware attacks and rampant disruption with malware, spyware and harmful viruses are not an exception, but a norm. Most cloud providers have seen a consumption increase on the cloud ranging from 20% + in the past few months. Traditional ISVs, who only had a licence model for their softwares have watched on helplessly as their customers, when forced to leave their office premises had no option but to leave the servers and licence softwares behind and render them useless. You will be surprised to know how many ISVs are seriously burning midnight oil to get a cloud offering for their products.
Since the onset of COVID-19 in India, Cloud has played a major role in helping companies operate from home. At a war footing pace, cloud providers were able to get most of the implementation in production in 24 to 48 hours ensuring businesses got back up and running with minimal disruption.
COVID-19 may have been the cause for many businesses to consider cloud, but as I speak to customers across India, we notice that most started with looking at it as a candle in the darkness, until the power is back on. But as they started using it and experiencing cloud, they are now starting to look at it as the rising sun and are now planning to stick to it with COVID or not. The belief of “21 days to form a habit” might just be true in this case!