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Opinion Business Technologies

Major challenges and market opportunities in the Cloud Service sector

The "Cloud" is often referred to as the "Internet" because it is a web of interconnected devices such as servers in a datacenter sharing data.

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DQINDIA Online
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Cloud is creating new market opportunities by driving Data center and Digital Transformation. Research suggests Public Cloud is poised to grow at a CAGR of 22.2 % and will aid transformation across Business functions, Industrial modernization and Technology disruption.

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The ease of solving challenges with Cloud Technologies is one of the key drivers for Cloud adoption. Cloud has opened up platforms for born in the Cloud technology companies to build disruptive technology to solve real life problems, all the food delivery apps to some of the popular dating apps are all born in the Cloud; scale when you need & pay for what you use has empowered these businesses to plan, build, & deliver at a speed like never before.

The key drivers for SMBs to explore Cloud today are the benefits like Pay as you use, Scale, Compliance and Resilience. While these benefits hold good for businesses running their own applications, SaaS providers are game changers in the Cloud adoption journey. The easy to consume applications on a per user model or subscription model are the future of digital transformation. From standard HRMS to situational technology like mask detection, thermal screen systems are some of the innovations powered by Cloud.

While the research data point and personal experience suggest the undeniable growth in Cloud adoption, the journey is never standard and it is impossible to fit all businesses into a box of solution on Cloud. The number of offerings on Cloud are vast, understand the services that will help your business drive the maximum business and technology impact is very important.

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Some of the Cloud providers offer proprietary solutions on their platform and lure you in using them with ease of manageability, spend additional marketing dollars to promote them or even have a dedicated team to drive adoption.

But it is important to understand that the Cloud providers don’t have a standard for these services and you may be lock down to the provider by using these services. There are businesses on the other end taking the Cloud neutral strategy to a whole new level and deploying their applications across two Cloud platform, this will only mean you will end up spending unnecessarily on data transfer charges between both platforms and will have to buildskills on two different platforms. The recommend journey to Cloud can be defined by the following steps:

1) New to Cloud – The first step is to build “Cloud Adoption Framework”
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2) Looking to by Cloud based SaaS products – Great, work with your service provider and be sure of availability, security and business continuity aspects of the solution.
3) Already on Cloud- Revisit your Cloud Strategy, replace services that bind you down to the Cloud provider.

What are some of the key challenges in adopting Cloud?

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1) Lack of skilled resources on Cloud – As mentioned earlier, Cloud is constantly evolving & the offerings are vast. Keeping up to date on the service offering and solutioning for each business requirement is not easy unless the team has experience working on multiple projects.


2) Economics – Hiring, Training & Retaining resources does not fit into the economics.


3) Validation – Most businesses are not sure of all the offering and if the solution they are using meets the requirement or if there are any better options available.
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How can Indian SMEs accelerate their Cloud Journey?

1) Hire a Managed Services Partner – Indian businesses at times over see the requirement to hire experts to do the job right. It calls for a shift in the think and let the Managed Services provider build prescriptive recommendations for you. They will be able to work out a pricing leveraging the experience and Economics of Scale.


2) Work with Partner who provide Pro-active support – Though we don’t believe in visiting a mechanic until something is broken, Cloud technology can be designed and deployed for resilience. A lot of break fixing can be avoided if you have the right architecture.
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3) Spend time evaluating the partner – It may be convenient to pick a partner your Cloud provider may recommend. Butyou will need work with partner and not Cloud Provider. It is recommended to put together a SoW and bring in evaluation mechanism for your Partner. It cannot be a standard but what makes business sense for your business and does the partner fit the bill.


4) Quality service comes at a reasonable cost – In the era of new age businesses, the need to haggle on pricing is drastically reduce as the prices are generally reasonable. But we are great with negotiations in India and there isneed for shift in the think to settle at a reasonable price for a long, healthy and quality service.

SMEs are adopting Cloud technology way faster in post COVID compared pre COVID. Brick and motor companies have move to a virtual work environment by adopting Cloud based VDI’s. Traditional business, like Chartered Accounting firms have moved their core financial applications to Cloud and Co-operative banks in Tier 2/3 cities have embraced Cloud for their Core banking applications. With the right plan, approach and team, Cloud adoption is an oath to drive business and financial ROI for SMEs.

  • Ms. Jesintha Louis, Director – Partner Success & Cloud Solutions Specialist, G7 CR Technologies India Pvt Ltd.
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