Understanding How Countries Are Faring In the Race to Cloud Adoption

Cloud technology has been on the watch list for people in tech and government for a few years. However, after the COVID pandemic, companies and workers started swarming to the cloud to continue their business projects. Here, cloud refers to software and services residing and operating on the Internet instead of a local computer or on-premise network of servers. As the cloud landscape is changing rapidly along with the commoditization of technology, it is high time we plan a cloud adoption strategy to maximize cloud benefits while reducing cost and risk.

The industrial business world is inclined towards practices that can boost agility, responsiveness, and scalability. Hence to ensure long-term success and competitiveness, enterprises must have a cloud strategy that aligns with these goals. This is important as the cloud is becoming an instrumental force in digital transformation for today's sustainable businesses. As a result, both business heads and government leaders must act quickly to allow smooth adoption of cloud practices. No doubt, the cloud has the potential to transform the government, public, and private sectors. Additionally, CXOs must look into a differentiated approach to cloud computing to survive the future headwinds in tech and business.

Generally, cloud adoption is considered for enterprise cost savings. As cost optimization becomes a key attribute, having multi-cloud strategies can warrant provider independence and address concentration risk. As CXOs will opt for the most cost-effective cloud architecture that would not compromise required performance, cloud providers will also continue to strengthen their native optimization capabilities for higher clientele. Meanwhile, multi-cloud strategies will be focused on minimizing vendor lock-in.

While more and more market players are beginning to recognize the inevitable need to shift their business to the cloud, the pace of cloud adoption is different for different industries like their requirements. Some industries are already on the precipice of reaping automation and optimization via the cloud; others are still struggling to respond to unexpected industry events and consumer requests appropriately. This is where the government can step in and introduce plans to propel this transition.

A research study from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) reveals that the UK's overall cloud adoption rate now stands at 88%, with 67% of users expecting to increase their adoption of cloud services over the coming year. Computing says that 88% of UK businesses were using cloud services in 2018 (an increase from 85% in 2017). Further, 10% were at the trial stage, and only 2% weren't using cloud computing in any way. At the same time, statistics reveal a grim reality for the whole EU.

According to Eurostat, only 26% of EU enterprises used cloud computing in 2018 – mostly for email hosting and file storage. Here, public cloud services received more attention (18%) than their private counterparts (11%). 68% of cloud users used these services for storing files, 48% find them a good place to host their database, while 53% reported using it for office software. These numbers varied significantly across member-states. In Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Belgium at least 40% of enterprises used cloud computing. On the other hand, only less than 10% of businesses relied on cloud services in Bulgaria and Romania.

According to Gartner, in the US, the growth in government use of public cloud services will soon be double digits. Their spending will grow at an average of 17.1% per year until 2021.

Last year, India's nebulous cloud adoption was at 6.0%, which is slightly lesser than the global average of 7.9%, but was almost half the US, UK adoption levels of 11.4%. Even Middle East nations are poised for booming expansion in this sector. The Middle East's increasing adoption of cloud services has helped bring the global public cloud market to top US$206 billion in 2019.

In China, a survey revealed a shift away from the public cloud, consolidation of private and hybrid cloud emergence amid the COVID. The use of public cloud appears to have peaked in our November 2018 survey at 51%, while this year, it dropped to 36%. Private cloud held steady, 42% versus 43% in November 2018. Hybrid cloud, a new option for this year, emerged at 39%.

These figures show that nations are ratcheting up their cloud adoption rate as part of a global digital transformation plan, although at varied speed. But this also means the IT landscape is entering an unprecedented time of change as digital technologies disrupt entire industries and customer expectations. Cloud will be critical in enabling companies to cope with this change. While benefits of cloud adoption are multifold, like, more efficient business operations and cost savings, any company operating in the cloud should carefully consider service providers, security concerns, and ongoing process challenges to create an efficient and secure experience for their team and customers. Hope the swift move to remote working due to COVID brings a spike in the number of companies moving to the cloud.