Why Businesses Are Choosing Cloud Computing Services

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Market research group, Fact.MR has released recently a report on the global cloud computing market highlighting the different factors influencing the increasing sales of cloud services. These include enterprise adoption of emerging technologies, the need for business flexibility and scalability, and the necessity of reducing infrastructure complexities.

SMEs are also adopting hybrid cloud computing services. This will pose significant opportunities for the cloud computing market. Hybrid cloud enables efficient workload management, increased security, and integration within DevOps teams. Because of its on-demand availability and low-cost investment in infrastructure, hybrid cloud services have become even more appealing to SMEs.

On the consumer end, people are increasing their use of online video and streaming platforms. Examples of these services include Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. This video-on-demand (VoD) market relies on efficient Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS is the backbone of cloud computing, so VoD will significantly expand the cloud computing market.

Market Growth Drivers

Emerging Technologies

Businesses have become more open to using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and machine learning. AI has become a powerful tool that assists businesses in a wide range of tasks—from customer-facing activities to internal operations. It’s found in most software and digital tools today and used in pharmaceutical drug discovery,  cybersecurity, and data center monitoring, among others.

Companies are also implementing augmented reality in various aspects of their operations. The retail industry uses AR for ecommerce, while healthcare uses it for medical training using AR headsets. AR is also used in tourism, field service, design and modeling, and the gaming industry. All these emerging technologies run on cloud ecosystems; thus analysts expect their use to directly impact the sales of cloud computing services.

Need for Flexibility and Scalability

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted business activities online. As a result, companies now have a clearer understanding of the importance of flexible work setups. The report cited the work-from-home culture as the underlying concept behind flexible workplaces. To provide this flexibility, companies are turning to software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.

SaaS products dominate the workloads of cloud computing. It also tops global spending on public cloud services. You’ll be hard-pressed to find businesses that don’t use more than one SaaS app in their enterprise software. At the height of the COVID lockdowns, SaaS apps like collaboration, project management, video conferencing, and file sharing solutions became the go-to software for most teams.

Infrastructure Setup

With the ongoing IT skills shortage, companies are looking for ways how to leverage technology even without hiring a full IT team. This scenario usually leads to implementing cloud-based solutions. Companies don’t need to worry about having IT staff working in shifts to monitor and maintain complex networks and IT systems. Whether it’s IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, RaaS, or any other pay-as-you-use cloud service, it unburdens businesses with complex software and hardware setup and maintenance.

Moreover, infrastructure complexities also involve figuring out how to mitigate risks. With cloud-based solutions, businesses also get cutting-edge security protocols implemented by cloud service providers. Though securing apps should also be undertaken by end-users, vendors and providers take on a huge part of that responsibility. This can be a very appealing benefit for many end-users, especially with the ever-increasing threat of cybercrimes.