What key cloud trends will influence IT investments as enterprises reassess their IT implementations in preparation for the year ahead? Amitabh Sinha, CEO of Workspot, shares predictions. Read the article on Spiceworks.
In 2022, organizations were challenged with significant cloud-related hurdles to cross. Executives have had to strategically manage budgets to deal with cloudflation, while security teams have been frustrated by relentless ransomware attacks despite having taken prevention measures. Additionally, IT teams came under increasing pressure to provide fast, efficient, and secure user access as younger generations push hybrid and remote work styles to ubiquity.
As the end of 2022 approaches, we see innovative solutions to these challenges emerge. Fresh thinking about cloud computing budgeting practices, selection of technology that inherently supports hybrid work, and innovation that helps sustain companies during ransomware recovery are all key topics for some deep thinking in 2023. So, let’s take an in-depth look at these cloud trends for 2023 and beyond.
Hybrid Work: The Forefront of the Future
The hyper-digital generations, including Gen Z and others, have found professional and personal value through a hybrid work experience. With shifting budgets and newer implementations within the enterprise, we’ll see the hybrid work model have a greater impact on new technology selection.
This workforce social paradigm shift, where employees have increased power to make demands about where and how they want to work, will force the hand of organizations (even more so) to guarantee their benefits reflect the hybrid era. As work models evolve into hybrid, cloud computing will be fundamental for keeping pace with the ongoing generational influence on workforce structures, providing new levels of agility that drive competitive advantage, and finding and retaining the top new talent that will take the business into the future.
Strategic Cloud Cost Rationalization
Last year, while IT budgets largely remained flat, many organizations were plagued with rising costs, especially for cloud computing and security-related solutions. All signs point to at least small increases in IT budgets. With increased spending, IT leaders will have more room for innovation as they plan the next steps for digital transformation roadmaps.
As companies continue to monitor the ROI from current investments, they’ll need to think about IT innovation differently. This means changing their forecasting timelines from merely considering the next 12 months to contemplating how business requirements might play out over the next 5 to 10 years. Short of having a crystal ball, making technology investment decisions with built-in cost optimization tools and techniques is one consideration while also ensuring that IT solutions embrace and adapt to change, so a dynamic business environment – as well as constantly changing technology – can be easily accommodated.
Leaders will need to align three aspects that go hand in hand to decide where and how to spend their expanded budgets in the most productive way possible:
Understand the corporate vision
The disconnect between technology and business leaders has continuously been one of the major handicaps for companies’ growth. IT teams’ active participation in overall business goals will potentially drive spending strategically on short-term needs while confirming that upcoming changes and challenges for the enterprise can be addressed.
Understand the infrastructure
A “do nothing” or “do everything” approach is unsuitable in a dynamic environment. Increasingly, organizations will need maximum agility from their IT investments to allow for strategic and incremental changes that move their overall company plans forward. Key questions that become a part of determining and allocating budgets may include: Which data is most important, and how and where should it be protected? Which elements of our business continuity plan are weakest, and what are the remedies for the relevant scenarios? These questions and more will emerge as budget drivers in 2023.
Understand the human factor
With the need to modernize end-user computing environments becoming a higher priority, the end-user will be at the core of new implementations. As end-user dissatisfaction (especially among younger people) rises due to the types of technology they are provided to perform their work, the implementation of modern technologies, such as always-available and high-performing Cloud PCs, will provide a top-notch user experience, resulting in greater productivity and driving competitive advantage. After all, user experience is everything!
The Cloud: The Future of the PC
Company-owned, on-premises data centers have been disappearing for ten years, and infrastructure-as-a-service is taking over. The many benefits of cloud computing apply to desktop workloads, too, with agility, scalability, cost-containment, better security, and great performance as the hallmarks of the Cloud PC. Choosing the right solution is paramount, and that requires some homework, but it seems very clear that the future of the PC is in the cloud.
Cloud PCs future-proof end-user computing, so organizations are ready for the next technology wave and the next business upheaval – it’s time to get started!
The Data Recovery Crisis
The hybrid work world generates increased vulnerabilities and opportunities for threat actors to strike. Ransomware costs organizations an average of $4.5 million per attack, but that doesn’t account for one of the most financially devastating consequences: total loss of productivity during the remediation process.
New approaches to ransomware recovery include Cloud PCs, which are serving as a modern “insurance plan” for quickly getting employees back to work – often in less than an hour after an attack – while enabling safe access to the data and critical applications employees need to keep the business running if the worst-case scenario becomes a reality.
Cloud PCs can be deployed in a protected, isolated environment that can span multiple clouds and multiple cloud regions – meaning organizations can remain productive, even while during mitigation and recovery procedures after experiencing an attack.
In the coming year and beyond, cloud adoption will continue to accelerate, helping to strengthen security for the enterprise. Cloud PCs can be a valuable strategy for end-user computing security. Be on the lookout for Cloud PC solutions that separate the data and control planes and enforce the Principle of Least Privilege (POLP) for the strongest security.
The Future of the Cloud
We’ll see innovation continue to blossom next year and beyond as business leaders rethink IT strategy and seek to modernize technology to tackle today’s challenges, aiming to increase profitability, inspire new levels of productivity, and solidify competitive advantage.
