Cloud hosting services have emerged as the saviors for organizations amid the ongoing pandemic. These services have effectively kept us connected with our co-workers and ensured business continuity while we are forced to work remotely. Thanks to cloud services, we could easily make the transition without any adverse effects on our productivity, which in turn resulted in a significant increase in the adoption of cloud services. Market reports suggest that the sudden demand for cloud computing resources due to COVID-19, led to a growth of 34% in the cloud infrastructure services spend.
The market size of the industry, too, is likely to see an upward trend in the near future. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% to go from $233 billion in 2019 to $295 billion in 2021, says a report by Markets and Markets. The major factors that are impacting the growth of cloud services include the need for organizations to support remote working, rising demand for hosted tools and services for business continuity and the sudden uptick in the use of cloud hosted enterprise services for uninterrupted communication and collaboration.
Cloud services also came in handy for organizations during disaster recovery situations when onsite personnel were unavailable to monitor and maintain the servers or data centers. They can be leveraged to create systems averse to disasters and resilient enough to cater to a workforce across geographies. Network downtime has also been effectively avoided with the help of these services, resulting in organizations achieving operational efficiency amid lockdowns. Not to mention, these services protect your data and eliminate all likelihood of unauthorized access to your business applications.
Cloud services have come under the spotlight during COVID-19 for their exceptional functionality and ensuring business continuity. Thanks to these services, employees could not only collaborate with each other and their clients in different parts of the world, but could also access the required data from the central repository right from the safety of their homes. Here’s a few reasons that make cloud services apt for organizations dealing with the repercussions of the global pandemic.
The most important benefit of cloud services is getting access to market-leading platforms without actually investing in expensive equipment or upgrading your infrastructure. Considering that the applications are not installed locally, the time and resources required to maintain and upgrade software reduces significantly. Additionally, the pay-as-you-go model ensures you only pay for what you use, helping you save some costs as you only opt for what you actually need.
The anytime, anywhere, any-device access of cloud services helps employees by allowing them to access the centralized data from any internet-enabled device. The centralization of data also has the added advantage of improved collaboration between co-workers, making it easy for them to simultaneously work on the same documents, sheets, projects or data from different locations.
The flexibility, scalability and agility of these services make them a great option for organizations in need of quick deployments of latest technologies. They need not limit themselves to on-premises servers and equipment or rely on data centers and at the same time, have the flexibility to configure servers and customize processes. Upgrading these services to suit the changing business needs is no difficult feat either.
Cloud service providers offer multi-level security features to keep you data safe from hackers, and ensure that only authorized members of your team get access to it. Data is also backed up frequently for disaster recovery in case of data loss or system-related problems.
High-speed computing and communication networks along with the liberty to quickly choose and begin using a cloud service are the factors that help reduce latency, ensure zero downtime and deliver an improved performance.
The plug-and-play functionality of these services can be a boon for organizations looking to start their businesses immediately, while drastically reducing their time to market. With cloud services, organizations can speed up their processes while doing away with time-consuming tasks like deploying equipment and installing software and applications.
Cloud services have grown in popularity over the last decade and became the go-to option for organizations during the pandemic. All sectors have now grasped the importance of hosted services and are adopting them unreservedly to make data, services and platforms more accessible for their workforce. These services have also found their place in the telecommunications industry, with Hosted Voice services, Hosted Billing solutions, Hosted MNP Lookup and SMS services and Hosted Switching and Unified Communication services becoming commonplace. Organizations looking to generate new revenue streams can divert their attention towards the cloud platforms and make sure it’s business as usual even during the pandemic.