If the main mission for 2020 was “fast cloud adoption”, this year it will be “do it now or get left behind”. From a security and efficiency perspective, organizations that do not opt for cloud computing solutions are at greater risk. Because cloud migration efforts are always an organization’s top priority, three priorities should be focused in 2021: on-demand access to data anytime, anywhere without interruption; Manage cloud computing costs while improving the operational efficiency of the entire IT infrastructure; Extract more value from data.

Over the past year, cloud computing has emerged as a key technology for organizations responding to the adverse impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their businesses. In fact, organizations are adopting cloud computing services much faster in 2020 than research institutes expect, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Driven by the need to expand capacity, increase flexibility and cost efficiency, last year’s outbreak was a wake-up call for many organizations to adopt cloud computing to gain a competitive advantage.

In 2020, cloud computing enables employees in organizations around the world to transform into a digital workforce overnight, with businesses helping them provide the business tools and services they need to perform their daily tasks instantly and on demand. If last year’s main mission was “fast cloud adoption”, this year’s will be “do it now or get left behind”. From a security and efficiency perspective, organizations that do not opt for cloud computing solutions are at greater risk.

Priorities for organization adoption of cloud computing

As cloud migration efforts remain a top priority for organizations, there are three priorities to focus on in 2021:

• On-demand access to data anytime, anywhere without interruption. The public and organizations are already aware of what’s happening in 2020. More and more organizations are adopting cloud computing because of the cost savings, efficiency and productivity benefits it can bring to their businesses.

• Manage cloud computing costs while improving operational efficiency across the IT infrastructure. By leveraging the cloud stacks provided by numerous cloud computing vendors, organizations will be able to simplify the IT requirements they need to deploy internally.

• Extract more value from data. By connecting services and data to the cloud platform, organizations will be able to gain insights and enable innovations that were not previously possible in in-house deployment facilities. Cloud computing services beyond the skills of organizing IT teams will play a key role in this regard.

Success in these priorities will require changes in technology and corporate culture. These changes will create innovation opportunities for organizations, but they will only happen if the relationship with data continues to evolve. Data needs to be protected and managed like any other asset, shared in a relevant way, and ultimately exploited. Most organizations don’t realize the true value and potential that underutilized data can have.

Organize investments in cloud computing in 2021

Investors also need to be aware of the value of cloud computing and pay close attention to the value and real-time nature of cloud computing. Some cloud computing providers are now generating double – or even triple-digit revenue growth, and cloud computing indices are outperforming market expectations. A case in point was Snowflake inc. ‘s September IPO, the largest ever by a software developer, which doubled to more than $120 a share on its first day of trading before soaring to more than $245 the next day.

Having said that, competition in the cloud computing software space remains intense, but this continued interest and investment presents new opportunities to drive greater innovation and differentiation from competitors. This, in turn, helps to create more value for customers, increasing revenues and investment, thus restarting the virtuous cycle.

Whether it’s new ways to collaborate, the ability to conduct low-cost experiments, or the opportunity to rapidly scale solutions on a global scale, organizations will leverage new technologies like ARTIFICIAL intelligence and machine learning to drive the insights cloud computing brings. All of this will help build new cloud-native applications and create apis to connect with other enterprises.

As more and more workloads grow on cloud platforms, organizations need to focus on their cloud computing priorities. This will enable them to successfully break down silos, build closer collaboration, drive faster innovation, and reduce time to value. Ultimately, this will support the growth of the most important metric (management data), which is a good proxy for the value that cloud computing solutions are currently creating and building.

By putting a cloud label on existing services, it will also help to distinguish those organizations that are not truly cloud computing from those that are. While cloud computing technology removes scalability and affordability barriers, not all organizations are able to maximize the value of data stored in their cloud platforms. In fact, according to a recent research institute survey of 700 IT leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom, 41 percent of IT leaders still say they are not ready to use the data they collect when they need to make decisions. Ultimately, more and more organizations will store and process their data on cloud platforms in 2021.

(The article is from D1Net, thanks)