Which Disruptive Technologies Influence Cloud Investment Plans and Purchasing Preferences?
Advancements in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), cloud-based automation, cloud-native security platforms, industry clouds, and next-generation application development tools are revolutionizing how businesses operate. But integrating multiple hardware/software components, supporting tightly orchestrated multi-cloud configurations, and modernizing applications for cloud deployment is becoming progressively complex. As businesses refine their cloud strategies, there’s a growing demand for hybrid and multi-cloud management platforms that facilitate real-time data processing, improve security/compliance reporting, and minimize cloud costs. This is creating new opportunities for the following ecosystem players to collaborate towards helping enterprises optimize their cloud workloads:
- Public cloud providers and hyperscalers
- Systems integrators
- Managed service providers (MSPs)
- Security service providers
- Data center and colocation service providers
- Network providers
Additionally, technologies like cloud, AI, machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT) represent critical aspects of digital transformation, pushing enterprises to strategically partner with third-party experts for accelerating the journey toward full-scale digitization. Further, factors like cost optimization, energy efficiency, sustainability, and business agility are in the limelight, influencing technology (and partner) decisions in enterprises of the future.
Notably, regional differences in digital maturity, infrastructure availability, security regulations, and economic conditions, are making it difficult for various providers to aptly anticipate enterprise investment plans and technology strategies to meet their changing needs – How will you align evolving customer needs with your organization’s cloud solutions and services portfolio?
Revealed: Changing Cloud Perceptions Across Different Regions
Frost & Sullivan finds that:
- 37% of organizations globally cite cloud and AI as vital to meeting their revenue growth goals, responding to industry disruptions, and enhancing sales/ marketing initiatives.
- While process automation, AI/ ML, and cloud take the lead in investment priorities across Latin America (LATAM) and the Asia Pacific (APAC), cloud and IoT emerge as key focus areas in Europe.
- With the explosion of AI-based data processing, the percentage of businesses using edge infrastructures is estimated to more than double by 2025 to support better application control, meeting sustainability goals, and minimizing security risks.
- Growing IT complexity, the need for new technologies, and the lightning pace of cloud innovation, has steered 73% of businesses globally, including 63% of LATAM businesses, 77% of APAC businesses, and 74% of European businesses towards third-party cloud partners (such as MSPs and systems integrators)
What cloud capabilities are indispensable for ensuring customer success across different regions and how will your technologists strategize to deliver these?
Collaborating with Ecosystem Players to Address the Challenges Interlinked with Cloud Configurations
Moving to the cloud allows businesses to minimize capital expenditure on physical IT infrastructure, thereby optimizing resource allocation through pay-as-you-go models. This offers agility, which enables enterprises to scale operations according to fluctuating demands, while enhancing real-time collaboration across geographically dispersed teams. But the following factors emerge as primary enterprise concerns when implementing growth strategies in the cloud:
- Ensuring compliance/ security
- Managing and optimizing cloud costs
- Keeping pace with new technologies/ services
- Adapting technology strategies
- Migrating legacy applications and data
- Implementing back-up plans
This implies that participants within the cloud provider ecosystem face the imperative to help their enterprise customers overcome these barriers to remain competitive and differentiate themselves. This customer and collaboration-centric approach is crucial for gaining enterprise trust and maximizing cloud innovation – Which strategic partnerships will help your leadership team overcome challenges associated with cloud configurations?
Capitalizing on Emerging Growth Opportunities in the Cloud Ecosystem
As the evolving global ICT landscape unleashes new opportunities for enterprises to transcend the limitations of conventional workload management, providers are being pushed to sharpen their focus on cloud analytics, app modernization, low-code application development platforms, and distributed storage services. Now, the following avenues emerge crucial for provider success:
- AI Services in the Public Cloud: Providing the infrastructure that undergirds AI workloads, while delivering a full range of AI services and GenAI capabilities.
- Cloud Security: Replacing inadequate legacy security solutions with cloud workload protection platforms (CWPPs), cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs), and cloud security posture management (CSPM) to protect data across private, public, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.
- Edge Computing: Facilitating edge configurations by designing industry or workload-specific edge solutions, especially for mission critical applications with higher data gravity, lower latencies, and real-time processing.
- Partner Programs: Fostering collaboration with infrastructure, platform, and software providers leveraging ‘as-a-service’ business models and cloud marketplaces, thereby delivering end-to-end enterprise solutions.
- Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Management Platforms: Utilizing AI to develop sophisticated management platforms that provide consistent visibility, control, and automated recommendations across cloud, edge, and data center infrastructures, thereby helping enterprises better manage their digital environments.
What long-term growth strategies does your organization have in place to identify and capitalize on the most lucrative opportunities in the evolving cloud landscape?
About Frost & Sullivan
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