2021 will bring more demand, more partnerships, more industry innovation to cloud

Certain uncertainty will accelerate cloud adoption in 2021

Despite living with the COVID-19 pandemic for most of 2020, so much remains uncertain. The timing and impact of a vaccine, whether or not there is additional government stimulus, and the changing economic environment will all have a profound impact on what occurs in 2021, and those are just the factors we know about. This uncertainty is reflected in TBR’s survey of 200 IT decision makers. When asked when they expect the business impacts of COVID-19 will subside, 78% of respondents expect the effects to subside sometime in 2021, but the responses diverge in terms of which quarter of 2021.

As a result of this continued uncertainty, flexibility in business operations and the IT resources that support them is more valuable than ever. Cloud was sought out based on necessity during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, but that behavior will persist in 2021 for two main reasons: flexibility and innovation. The ability to shift resources, enable more remote work, and scale cloud services up and down as needed are value propositions that resonate especially well in the current environment. Innovation is a broad concept and can cross analytics, integration and security realms. More generally, customers see value in the ongoing investments their cloud providers are making and in their ability to seamlessly access those enhancements. For these reasons, customers expect to accelerate their cloud adoption in 2021, regardless of exactly when the effects of COVID-19 subside. They may not know exactly what the business climate will hold, but they understand the flexibility and innovation that come with cloud-delivered solutions will play a role in helping them weather 2021.

2021 Cloud Predictions

• Industry clouds become the norm
• Partnership models support cloud demand in new era
• Containers will challenge the legacy virtualization model

Technology Business Research 2021 Predictions is a special series examining market trends and business changes in key markets. Covered segments include cloud & software, telecom, devices & commercial IoT, data center, and services & digital.