Cloud Computing & Digital Transformation: Why IT Organizations Need Both

It’s hard to imagine any well-informed, growth-oriented organization unaware of the benefits of cloud computing and digital transformation. 

As per the 2018 Digital Transformation Survey conducted among executives across verticals, 80% of those who implemented digital transformation technologies, such as cloud, IoT, or PLM, said they were able to deliver new value for smart and connected products throughout their lifecycle. 60% could create new business models as a result.

• **The cloud is now mainstream. In 2019, 90% of companies are on the cloud. 
• The US is the most important public cloud market, and its population is expected to spend $124.6 billion this year. 
• Approximately 33% of all companies’ entire technology budget goes toward cloud services.
• Almost 70% of companies either already have some digital transformation strategy, or they are working on it.
• 40% of all technology spending is likely to go into digital transformations in 2019. Enterprise spending could reach $2 trillion. 
• More than 70% of all executives consider the workforce as either very or extremely important for their digital transformation strategies. 

As organizations aggressively move toward digital transformations, it’s evident that Cloud Computing plays a crucial role. Both are needed, and it’s challenging to have one without the other. 

Let’s briefly discuss digital transformation, cloud computing, and why they must go hand-in-hand.

Digital Transformation

• Digital Transformation is the use of the latest, fastest, and ever-evolving digital technologies for solving problems. 
• It’s a combination of technical solutions, such as cloud computing and blockchain, for modernizing existing procedures, processes, and strategies within an organization. 
• The process often includes utilizing cloud computing, reducing dependency on user-owned hardware, and increasing it on subscription-based cloud services.

Cloud Computing

• Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer resources, data storage, and computing power without any direct active management by users. 
• It describes data centers available to multiple users over the Internet.
• The process also includes delivering services such as storage, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet to enable better innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.

Cloud Computing Plays Into Digital Transformation

• An organization, while moving to the cloud, must make necessary changes to extract maximum benefits out of cloud computing.
• Technology vendors provide operations guides to be used for changing procedures and processes.
• The operating model must change form a legacy IT environment to a cloud computing environment. 
• RACI metrics, governance policies, and security aspects should be examined.
• Cloud computing helps solve numerous technical issues.
• It improves an organization’s efficiency and agility, and it frees up data center space. It also moves between CapEx and OpEx, and it can go digital.
• Improved security, privacy, and compliance are some of the reasons why organizations are moving to cloud computing.

Cloud Computing Benefits

• Cloud computing helps to achieve standardization, control, and elasticity. It also ensures a minimum of underutilized assets.
• There are no worries about version control. It is easily upgradable.
• It helps in overcoming issues such as hardware/software compatibility and long implementation times. 
• It enables business process automation, and it forces a security-first mindset.
• It lets you reduce the size of your existing data center footprint by transforming applications into SaaS solutions.

Cloud computing does have some significant drawbacks. It’s not always easy for a user to entirely understand the business requirements, which can lead to a misalignment of the cloud computing solutions, incomplete stakeholder buy-in, and inappropriate cost estimates. It is also possible to incorrectly address SACPS (security, audit, compliance, privacy, and standards).

Cloud Computing should be seen as an agent of digital disruption. There are undeniable value-adds that businesses can have by pursuing both digital transformation and cloud computing strategies simultaneously.

With NetCom Learning’s team of experienced instructors, you may explore Comprehensive Azure Certification Training to learn hands-on skills in Cloud Fundamentals, storage, database, security, cloud development and deployment, virtualization, big data/analytics, and IoT.

Note: **Sources: 451 Research, IDC, Spiceworks, IDG, Tech Pro Research, IndustryWeek and CompTIA.