The move to remote work nearly a year ago accelerated cloud computing trends that were already in play. With no quick return to offices expected in 2021, businesses of all sizes should plan to prioritize further cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) investments to support distributed workforces, while being mindful six key trends.

Cloud is enabling new ways of doing business

Moving to cloud computing or SaaS offerings isn’t just about getting on the latest technology bandwagon or saving money on capital or operational expenses. The cloud enables organizations of all sizes to do business better to make employees more productive across many departments, including finance, human resources and marketing, no matter where they are located. Cloud computing and SaaS also level the playing field to allow smaller business to compete with large competitors.

Security is a critical differentiator

Even with all these productivity gains from cloud computing and SaaS, the move to remote work as heighted the need for robust security, so organizations need to set aside time, resources and attention on their security strategy as to prevent breaches and disruptions that might impede any newfound productivity or cost them revenue through lost customers who lose trust.

Not everything will be in the cloud

Even as cloud computing and SaaS continue to take off to support distributed remote workforces, hybrid environments that mix on-site computing, storage, and services with public cloud offerings from vendors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure will become the norm, and everything will need to work together in concert, securely. Different providers will need to work together to as they each get spooled up to meet the specific requirements of different lines of business within an organization.

A spring cleaning of all compute resources
Organizations will begin to realize not everything that got migrated to the cloud needed to be moved, so even as cloud computing adoption will continue to accelerate, it’s become clearer which workloads need to be in the cloud, and which ones should be winding down, including any outdated data that goes with them, to be even more efficient and get the best bang for the buck from their cloud spend.

Training across the board: Getting the most from cloud computing while keeping it secure will mean investments in training for IT staff as well as raising the cybersecurity awareness of workers across the board as to adequately safeguard organizations as the era of remote work continues. Both cloud providers and their customers will want to make sure they’re providing both entry level knowledge of the cloud as well as creating advanced experts as a means to enable the business.

Consolidation of cloud providers
While it’s unlikely that an organization will want to put all their eggs in one basket—not all service providers are great at everything—they will want to keep the number of cloud computing environments and SaaS applications manageable. While larger enterprises will likely give most of the budget to the big players, smaller ones will likely want work with a local managed services provider that will prioritize their business and help the navigate all the emerging cloud computing deployment options and guide them on the necessary governance and security.

If 2020 was all about a mad scramble to support a remote workforce and iron out the kinks, then 2021 will be about looking to the future with new investment in cloud computing and SaaS offerings while building on the foundation that was put in place.