Top trends driving cloud adoption today

By Jonathan Wood, General Manager, Middle East & Africa, Infor

In virtually every industry, organizations of all sizes have reached the tipping point where they’re now recognizing the value of cloud deployment and acknowledging that migrating on-premises solutions to the cloud brings many benefits. This is a massive shift from the early days of cloud computing, where many organizations were cloud-shy, worried about security, protecting intellectual property, and giving up their heavily modified solutions. Now, cloud technology providers have proven the reliability of cloud platforms and demonstrated stringent security, robust capabilities, and ease of deployment—driving more businesses to the cloud than ever before.

Operating in the cloud sets an essential foundation for modernization in today’s digital age. For any organization that’s still on the fence, here are some key trends to consider that demonstrate why migrating to the cloud is not just a critical factor for conducting business today, but also being ready for how business will be done tomorrow.

1. The need to remove data silos and democratize decisions at all levels: Data in on-premises solutions is often siloed and provides only minimal insight to key decision makers, leaving executives, employees, and partners without direct access to critical information. In contrast, cloud solutions typically centralize data in the cloud, creating a single system of record for an enterprise, with data universally accessible and useful. The cloud enables the right data to provide the right insights at the right time—in the right context, form factor, and security model. As a result, organizations are empowered to speed decision-making, improve the customer experience, and mitigate risk.

2. Industry-specific capabilities are a requirement, not just a “nice-to-have”: Organizations need their business solutions to provide industry-specific capabilities so they can deliver best-in-class products and services to their customers. Leading cloud providers preconfigure industry-specific capabilities into their solutions, giving organizations the unique functionality they need, without complex customizations. This allows an organization’s business systems to be more adaptable and provides a long-term platform for growth.

3. Today’s workers demand a modern user experience: As a new generation of digital natives enter the workforce, they demand technology that is user-friendly and supports how they like to work. This often means software that mirrors the look and feel of the mobile and social applications they use in their day-to-day lives and that provides immediate access to data and collaboration. Cloud technology is typically more user friendly for not only employees, but also customers, partners, and suppliers—essentially, an organization’s entire business ecosystem.

4. Hybrid cloud deployments take center stage as integration improves: Organizations are looking for solutions that offer choice and efficiency, so they can focus on what truly differentiates them from the competition. The shift to the cloud comes with multiple deployment options. In fact, many of today’s organizations have cloud components that are tied to an on-premises core solution set. Over time, an increasing number of deployments will shift from such a hybrid approach to a pure cloud model. Integration technology continues to improve in ease of use, implementation time, and cost of ownership.

5. Trusting a cloud partner to reduce the risks of cybersecurity threats: With cybercrime seeping into virtually every industry, ensuring that enterprise systems and platforms are protected from the financial impact of security breaches is critically important. Data breaches cost organizations $3.92 million on average, and present overwhelming vulnerabilities. Industry-leading cloud partners have greater cybersecurity resources available than most organizations could ever hope to have on their own. By moving enterprise systems and platforms to the cloud, organizations can effectively hand off cybersecurity responsibilities and significant costs to a committed cloud partner.

6. Push for post-sale revenue drives support for subscription-based business models: In the fast-changing digital age, organizations are looking for ways to differentiate themselves, meet the evolving needs of their customers, and improve profits by creating opportunities for post-sale revenue. Cloud-based solutions can provide real-time data that’s accessible anytime, anywhere, enabling organizations to turn traditional product offerings into services, such as a subscription-based business model. Such a customer-centric feature can become a differentiator, adding value, building relationships, preventing commoditization, and adding profit. Adopting a subscription-based business model creates a recurring revenue relationship by charging customers a regular, generally time-based fee. This approach allows organizations to increase their focus on customer experience while positively impacting the bottom line.