The growth of the cloud in 2021

Growth in cloud technology has experienced a steady incline within the last decade. Despite a global pandemic, social unrest and political uncertainties, this pattern has continued unabated through the last 12 months. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dramatic and sudden need for global businesses to enable full remote working through technology. By Robert Belgrave, Pax8 UK, CEO.

  • 2 years ago Posted in

While many businesses are reaping the reward of diving into the world of the cloud headfirst, this leap can introduce numerous obstacles and operational complexities if a cloud operating model is not properly defined. The implementation of cloud technology needs to be carefully incorporated in order to succeed in effective digital transformation cloud-driven projects.

A simplified cloud adoption process

Most organisations are directly expanding their primary use of the cloud at an accelerated pace in order to maintain their competitive advantage. The COVID-19 pandemic has additionally increased both the scale and speed of cloud adoption throughout multiple industries.. However, whilst cloud is still top-of-mind for many industries, there is still additional work to be done to manage the complexity of cloud services.

The adoption of cloud technology and the innovative processes that it can be used for is essential to many organisations’ future strategy and growth, said 83% of survey respondents from The State of Cloud-Drive Transformation by Harvard Business Review. This dramatic increase of focus and reliance on cloud technology has led to new strategies, experiences and workflows across multiple industries. 66% of respondents say that incorporating real time data analytics, mainly artificial intelligence (AI), is an integral part of monitoring and gaining insights across cloud services and infrastructure.

The growing cloud market

Over the past year, the cloud market has accelerated beyond all previous expectations. It has become a necessity for survival for many businesses as they seek to accelerate the pace of their digital transformation, keep up with their competition, and continue to innovate. One of the key reasons for this growth of the cloud market is the increase of remote-working. This has required organisations to communicate online and work entirely digitally, and the utilisation of cloud services has been integral to this. 

Technological advancements in a post-pandemic landscape

As a direct result of the global pandemic, businesses slowed down their rate of overall investments in technology, according to a report from Deloitte the cloud computing market grew even faster in 2020 than in 2019.   What’s more, it’s highly likely that as a result of the pandemic, many organisations will look to implement extensive remote working policies far beyond lockdown which could see cloud adoption only increase further than it already has. 

Now is the pivotal time for businesses to reassess and readjust their internal approaches in order to take full advantage of the agility, scalability, availability, and speed of the cloud at a time when it is more important than ever.


By Adam Gaca, Vice President of Cloud Solutions at Future Processing.
By Jo Debecker, Managing Partner and Global Head of Wipro FullStride Cloud.
By Charles Custer, senior technology researcher, Cockroach Labs.
By Tim Whiteley, Co-Founder of Inevidesk.
By Russell Crowley, co-founder at Principle Networks.
By Byron Hudson, SVP & GM Blue Prism Cloud Portfolio, SS&C Blue Prism and Adam Lawrence, VP Cloud...
By Richard Thomas, founder and CEO of Highlight.