All signs point to continued cloud adoption. Gartner predicts global public cloud spending to grow at a rate of 21.7% to reach $482 billion in 2022, up from $396 billion this year. Spending in Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) will represent the biggest fraction of that revenue.
Additionally, as Lloyd Adams, SAP North America Senior Vice President and Managing Director of East Region, points out, “2022 will be an inflection point in the North American cloud market as it is forecasted to double in size from 2022 to 2025. As companies look beyond the pandemic and toward a more flexible future, the moment is particularly ripe for change. The midmarket space and consumer, financial services and professional services industries will be the biggest contributors of cloud growth during that time.”
But what’s driving that growth?
John Tully, SAP North America Senior Vice President and Managing Director of South Region, says, “The three biggest areas that will drive significant cloud momentum in 2022 are platform technologies, customer experience (CX) and digital supply chain. Competitive advantage will continue revolving around the ability to develop new, profitable business models, meet and exceed your customers’ evolving expectations, and overcome the immense supply chain challenges many companies are facing today.”
“At a bare minimum, businesses will need intelligent platforms that can manage data, analytics, integration and extension capabilities; CX technology that helps to understand, engage and deliver to their audiences; and a supply chain with real-time visibility, speed, personalization and choice,” Tully says.
Cloud’s Problem-Solving Capabilities
Businesses are also concluding that cloud adoption is the solution to some current challenges. One is “The Great Resignation,” the term for employees across industries currently leaving their jobs for new opportunities.
Bryan Patton, Principal Strategic Systems Consultant at Quest, says, “Continuing into 2022, this workforce trend means IT teams are feeling a talent shortage pinch, losing admins qualified to manage legacy platforms like Active Directory, and pros that were focused on Microsoft 365.”
He adds, “With workforce shortage issues becoming increasingly acute, IT pros will turn to high-quality automated solutions and cloud platforms to make up for the loss of manpower as these tools require fewer IT pros to operate and manage. We expect to see a continuing rise in the adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud services in 2022, with the expectation from companies that they can integrate their data across these environments, as well as manage cloud spending and performance.”
Additionally, cloud solutions and services can ease some supply chain challenges. Darcy MacClaren, SAP North America Senior Vice President of Digital Supply Chain and Manufacturing, comments, “Supply chain challenges aren’t going away, and cloud will be the critical component in helping us move past ports being closed, shelves being empty and holiday shopping taking place in March.”
“Supply chain cloud innovation will likely continue delivering functionalities that make it easier and more cost-efficient for leaders to pivot their operations when disruption continues to happen and strengthen key metric reporting in areas like sustainability,” she says. “We’re close to the two-year mark on the pandemic; backed up ports and sourcing challenges will continue placing pressure on business leaders to adopt long-term, technology-based solutions that will enable resilient and agile supply chains as opposed to stopgap measures.”
Cloud Adoption Is Creating Opportunities
The combination of increased interest in cloud, planned spending, and challenges that cloud services can help businesses and enterprises solve are adding up to opportunities for solutions providers. As you establish the direction of your business in 2022, align with the cloud adoption trend and find ways to leverage cloud solutions to solve today’s most pressing challenges.
