Technology As An Enabler in 2020

Without doubt Cloud Technology has shown its strengths in 2020 supporting many organisations and resolving fundamental business challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. Those fortunate to continue operating sought effective methods of enabling remote working and as a result turned their attention to Cloud Technology to communicate, share, collaborate and simply function in some capacity. Solution providers such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams rose as champions in the communication space offering immediate video conferencing and demonstrated that no matter what size operation Cloud Technology had an affordable and effective solution on offer.

The era of traditional software purchase and delivery/ installation has passed and we’re now firmly in a time where business is able to subscribe to SaaS propositions (Software as a Service) and scale up or down users as required using often a subscription payment plan. The addition of other cloud services such as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) has also helped to revolutionise how many businesses function.

For those businesses, who had historically been slow to see ‘technology as an enabler’, they face major challenges creating an effective digital transformation strategy having never considered one or, had done so but superficially. Flexera, an organisation which helps business leaders transform their IT ecosystem, have produced their yearly ‘state of the cloud’ report covering enterprises and SMB’s adoption of cloud technology. Interestingly the result of a survey produced the following overall findings:  

The growth of cloud technology according to IDC (International Data Corporation a premier global provider of market intelligence) will see the following three sectors spend the most:
•    Manufacturing Industry - $19.7 billion
•    Professional Services - $18.1 billion
•    Banking Services - $16.7 billion

The cloud technology model is split into ‘public’, ‘private’ and ‘hybrid’ with public referring to ‘publicly available’ scalable and self-service proposition. Private shares similar advantages but through a proprietary architecture (bespoke) and one that is dedicated to the needs and goals of a single organisation. Hybrid allows for the management of both on-premises as well as public cloud infrastructure and applications.

The benefit of cloud adoption is often felt immediately with many seeing tangible benefits within the first few months of adoption. MultiSoft (a multi-level marketing solution provider) claim that of their research some 80% of SMB’s and start-ups forming part of a survey benefitted within this timescale with 40% highlighting a major reason being its affordability and a cost-effective alternative to employing in-house maintained platforms.

Past major obstacles to investing in cloud technology are disappearing as business gains greater confidence in the reliability and level of security offered encouraging the industry to continue to develop ever more cutting edge solutions to support companies and shape a new era as we attempt to find our way out of Covid-19 which will undoubtedly change the way we do business.

At Rocktime over the last 4 years we've evolved from being a full service digital agency into a software development company focussed on developing 'product' in the form of Software as a Service. Our award winning cloud software has been seen as disruptive in markets where there has been traditionally slow innovation and as we focus on the future our portfolio will continue to expand. In tandem, we have worked closely with a number of businesses in a variety of sectors shaping their digital strategies and helping them to utilise cloud technology as an enabler for positive change that ever evolves in line with their success.

If you are in the process of creating your digital transformation strategy, have a web or software project please get in touch and we would be happy to discuss it with you.