A recent research from Wipro in association with TLG reveals how the Cloud is no longer seen as an improvement to IT infrastructure, a 'step change' that is simply making processes and systems more efficient. Rather, the report confirmed what I suspected all along - most businesses see Cloud as a 'game changer', a new technology that changes the way we do business.
100 CXOs in four countries - USA, UK, France and India - were surveyed. Most agreed that the Cloud has a profound impact on businesses across different sectors, at a strategic and operational level. Although the innovation is at a relatively early stage, business believes that the economic benefits will be very significant, and can be categorized under four major heads:
- The Commercial opportunity: The commercial opportunities are two–fold: first, the chance to change the way a company works, by allowing for "greater collaboration", "more creative processes" and ideas to be discussed in "real time" (FD, USA). Second, Cloud can change the way a company competes, by enabling new services, or entrepreneurs, to enter existing markets with new offerings and reinvent or even create a sector.
- The Economic opportunity: Business leaders attach critical significance to the Cloud for giving them the power to generate greater efficiencies and economies to reduce overheads. Most notably, it also gives executives the power to control business exposure to changing economic climates. Lastly, Cloud technology has the potential to create completely new business models and SMEs and start-ups will embrace them.
- The Labor opportunity: There are two dimensions to the labor opportunities provided by the Cloud. First, teams are not tied to offices and offices are not tied to teams. Cloud computing helps business become mobile, and employees can access work related information from anywhere. Second, and less common-place, is the recognition of the power of collaboration. This is a very important dimension for businesses looking for new solutions. It is developing new ways of thinking and working as institutions source ideas.
- The Social Opportunity: Cloud technology offers businesses and civil society an opportunity to transform expectations at an economic and social level. The Cloud represents a paradigm shift in terms of building capacity to transcend social and commercial boundaries to reinvent known models.
The Cloud is helping to make a positive reality of globalization, delivering greater benefits and generating greater value. This is a trend which, if it continues to grow, will connect ideas, institutions and individual users in diverse markets to help meet shared objectives.