5 minute read
05/12/2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to impact the way society and businesses function, but what we have to be careful of is that the changes are not negative.
Looking back at March 2020, it’s fair to say not many of us were prepared for the life-altering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research from the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) found that 40% of businesses said they had plans in place based on previous epidemics, however, only 66% said they were successful.
Almost overnight, business continuity plans were rapidly scaled to ensure operations could continue under the most extreme circumstances.
For some, who’d already begun their digital transformation journey, this meant scaling up existing resources already in place to enable remote working and accelerate the shift to a more digitally orientated workplace. But for the majority, a completely new way of working was thrust upon them. The cloud empowered remote working like never before and enabled a shocked economy to continue functioning.
Gartner recently estimated the global spend on public cloud services will increase to almost $500 billion in 2022, up from $214 billion in 2019. But the question now remaining is how effective our decision-making during that period was.
To ensure businesses could continue to operate, decisions were rightly made quicker than they would’ve been in a normal world. However, these tactical rather than strategic decisions might not have been best for the long-term health of the business.
With some semblance of normality returning, businesses can now take time to look at their operations and consider whether the cloud is being used to the best of its ability. There are optimisation opportunities that ensure the greatest levels of resilience, security, efficiency, and profitability.
