Experts keep predicting pandemics every now and then, but people hardly pay heed to what’s being communicated.
With COVID-19, it was pretty much the same. But only when it pushed businesses beyond their limit, the industry started looking for different ways to adopt the “new normal”.
One such trend that has once again surfaced in the market is – the adoption of cloud-based IT infrastructure.
Although it had already gained its fair share of popularity, businesses were still relying on old-school principles that they have been leveraging from the past decade. However, the present situation has compelled them to re-evaluate their business functions along with the IT infrastructure.
That said, now is the time for businesses to quickly adopt cloud computing solutions. This is because, with the speed at which cloud-based infrastructure is being adopted, it will certainly become the norm in the not so distant future.
In this piece, we’ll be covering the top 5 ways how Coronavirus pandemic is transforming the future of cloud-based infrastructure.
- Accelerated Adoption of Remote Working
In the wake of the pandemic, businesses have asked their employees to work from home which has resulted in the accelerated adoption of remote working.
But in the past, regardless of the technological advancements and consistent rise in the adoption of the work from home approach, the remote workers were still a minority and consisted of just 3.4% of the total workforce.
However, after the COVID-19 outbreak and the implementation of various social distancing measures, there has been a surge in the percentage of remote workers. This has further pushed the organisations to make cloud computing an essential part of their business and that too at a global level.
At this point, several businesses who have been unprepared are likely to grapple with making things work. But with the help of cloud-based infrastructure, they can easily streamline their business processes.
- Strain on Physical Resources
With more people being asked to work from home, it has increased the remote access of various files and accounts.
Now, this not just exerts a lot of strain on the resources like company servers since a lot of them are using cloud-based services, but also impacts the network infrastructure. Also, let’s not overlook those managed IT support and security processes that need to be implemented to avoid a data breach.
What’s more, the shift to cloud-based services has also increased the server load and other DNS queries – looks like this the new reality for business!
- Transition to Virtual Team
It comes as no surprise that technology provides us with unrivalled connectivity. Over the past few months, people have shifted to virtual teams and are relying on Zoom, Slack, Drive, Emails, and other such communication tools to make working from home easier.
However, the lack of face-to-face communication is still throwing various challenges in the way. Not to mention issues like zero transparency, incongruent workload, communication errors, and overlapping business processes are hindering the quality of work.
This is where IT leaders can leverage their creativity and innovation to create a more productive work environment. A workspace where collaboration, engagement, and accountability is at the core of offering services.
- A Surge in Cloud Migration Expenses
Along with understanding the effects of COVID-19 on team communication, it’s equally important to consider its impact on business operations and cloud migration costs.
By this time, the majority of IT managers would have realised that the cost of projects is never really within their expected budget. At times, it can also end up being 30% more than what you had expected it to be in the very beginning. And this is particularly true when it comes to cloud migration.
You are likely to incur known expenses that are way over your budget, surprise expenses that you hardly expected, and then massive charges for transferring large amounts of data.
On the whole, this entire migration process is going to consume a lot of your labour hours.
The Bottom Line
Was this COVID-19 pandemic really needed to compel businesses to take the leap of digital transformation? Perhaps, it was necessary!
The truth is – there is an increase in demand for cloud-based services (it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon, does it?) because of an increase in the number of people working remotely.
But this is just the beginning of IT automation, and presently, businesses are experiencing agility, improved efficiency, cost savings, and scalability.
On the whole, the COVID-19 pandemic has sped-up the decision-making process.
