Despite economic uncertainty, businesses are expected to keep investing in cloud solutions in 2023. Gartner has projected worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services will grow by 20.7 percent to $591.8 billion this year.
Although organizations that downsize their overall IT budgets could also invest less in cloud computing, Sid Nag, vice president analyst at Gartner, said in a press release, “Cloud computing will continue to be a bastion of safety and innovation, supporting growth during uncertain times due to its agile, elastic and scalable nature.”
As we consider the year ahead, here are a few notable cloud computing trends to watch and factor into your company’s strategic roadmap.
1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is expected to experience the most growth.
Although spending on all public cloud service segments is projected to grow in 2023, Gartner expects cloud-delivered infrastructure to see the steepest increase in investment, rising 29.8 percent to reach $150.3 billion in total spending.
In the release, Nag notes that cloud system infrastructure services “will naturally continue to grow as businesses accelerate IT modernization initiatives to minimize risk and optimize costs. Moving operations to the cloud also reduces capital expenditures by extending cash outlays over a subscription term, a key benefit in an environment where cash may be critical to maintain operations.”
2. Business leaders will prioritize cloud cost containment.
While IT managers and leaders will have the go-ahead to keep spending on cloud solutions, they’ll also face requirements to demonstrate return on investment and leverage cost management tools and strategies, according to a blog entry by Forrester Principal Analyst Lee Sustar. He notes that the built-in financial management tools offered by cloud solutions will serve as a jumping-off point but won’t be enough for executives that prefer a more objective approach.
“Our prediction focuses on the prospects for third-party providers to meet those needs,” Sustar writes.
3. Cloud security will keep IT and business leaders up at night.
As businesses adopt cloud solutions and embrace multi-cloud strategies, they face new security risks. Almost half (45 percent) of data breaches occur in the cloud, according to IBM’s 2022 cost of a data breach report. Last year’s average data breach cost totaled $5.02 million for organizations with public clouds, $4.24 million for those with private clouds, and $3.80 million for companies with hybrid cloud deployments.
To avoid steep costs, reputational damage and other fallout associated with breaches, IT and business leaders will prioritize cloud security in 2023 and beyond. A managed security service provider can minimize risk with solutions and services such as managed detection and response, over-privileged access identification, and ongoing analysis and profiling of potential issues.
4. Cloud solutions will increasingly leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Artificial intelligence continues to evolve and has enormous potential to help businesses boost productivity and automate mundane tasks. Cloud solutions that integrate AI and machine learning are already on the market and will likely continue to grow in popularity this year.
For instance, many cloud contact center software suppliers incorporate artificial intelligence into their software to run chatbots and intelligent interactive voice response systems. These conversational AI solutions can lighten the workload for human agents and allow them to focus on more complex interactions. By 2026, Gartner predicts that one out of every 10 contact center agent interactions will be automated.
Finding the best cloud solutions for your business
If you’re interested in exploring your cloud solution options, our trusted technology advisors have extensive experience finding the best cloud-delivered products and services for our clients from the leading suppliers in our expansive partner network. We’ve helped businesses across various industries contain costs, boost productivity, and enhance remote work capabilities with best-in-class cloud solutions – including cloud phone systems, cloud contact center platforms, and more.
With so many solutions and suppliers, finding the right ones for your business can prove difficult and time-consuming. Let us leverage our expertise, experience, and advanced tools to streamline the process. Our advisors can create objective comparison matrices, arrange demos, and handle negotiations with providers.
For a real-life example of our work, check out this case study: Fortune 100 Company Finds Ideal Cloud Contact Center Platform to Enhance CX. In this instance, our team steered the client away from a cloud contact center solution they were initially interested in but that we knew wasn’t the best choice for a global deployment for a larger organization. That’s the value of working with knowledgeable technology advisors.
Get started today by calling 877-599-3999 or emailing sales@stratospherenetworks.com to schedule a consultation with one of our advisors.
