How cloud played a vital role during the pandemic

A year ago, at the begin­ning of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, techUK pub­lished an arti­cle about how the UK cloud com­put­ing indus­try was ready, will­ing and able to sup­port UK organ­i­sa­tions’ switch to remote work­ing. We high­light­ed the scal­a­bil­i­ty the cloud pro­vides, reli­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty and that the cloud has been sup­port­ing the UK work­force to become more mobile and capa­ble to embrace new ways of work­ing for many years. 

Now, as we reflect on the last 12 months, what is clear is dur­ing the pan­dem­ic cloud com­put­ing has played a vital role in keep­ing busi­ness­es going, sup­port­ing us all to remain dig­i­tal­ly con­nect­ed while we have been, and for now at least remain, phys­i­cal­ly apart. 

Cloud has pro­vid­ed vital sup­port to pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions that need­ed to increase data pro­cess­ing and man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ties at speed, help­ing bod­ies to access real-time data when it was most need­ed. 

Both glob­al organ­i­sa­tions and small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es sup­ply­ing cloud ser­vices have increased their oper­a­tions seem­ing­ly overnight, pro­vid­ing essen­tial com­put­ing resources, infra­struc­ture and data-stor­age solu­tions in a safe and secure way to a nation switch­ing to remote work­ing. 

In the weeks and months ahead, as the focus for busi­ness­es turns to how to rebuild and recov­er from the pan­dem­ic, what is also becom­ing clear is the impor­tant role the cloud will have in sup­port­ing UK com­pa­nies as the econ­o­my and soci­ety begin to reopen and the cru­cial post-COVID recov­ery begins.  

The good news is we saw a sig­nif­i­cant increase in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion by organ­i­sa­tions in 2020. Part of the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion seen in the UK has been due to an increase in invest­ment and adop­tion of cloud-based ser­vices and tech­nolo­gies, not just by busi­ness­es already using the cloud, but also by small­er com­pa­nies that had still not start­ed their cloud jour­ney. 

Organ­i­sa­tions that were still per­haps think­ing about dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion due to under­stand­ing, skills and knowl­edge, accel­er­at­ed their plans and invest­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly in cloud to keep their oper­a­tions going. 

What this means now is more UK busi­ness­es can access com­put­ing ser­vices, pow­er and resources that will enable them to be agile and respon­sive to changes in the mar­ket and con­sumer habits and trends. By invest­ing, adopt­ing and deploy­ing cloud ser­vices and tech­nolo­gies last year, organ­i­sa­tions will have put in place the dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture that can sup­port the use of more cut­ting-edge dig­i­tal inno­va­tions such as intel­li­gent automa­tion, edge com­put­ing and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as and when they are ready.   

Right now, busi­ness lead­ers who invest­ed in cloud last year will be ask­ing how this can help them move for­ward, recov­er quick­er and per­haps even rein­vent their oper­a­tions, and by doing so leapfrog the com­pe­ti­tion in months ahead. 

Just as we saw at the start of the pan­dem­ic, the UK’s com­pet­i­tive and vibrant cloud com­put­ing indus­try stands ready, will­ing and able to sup­port UK busi­ness­es in this mis­sion. 

How­ev­er, with organ­i­sa­tions’ use of cloud com­put­ing ser­vices expect­ed to devel­op and mature at pace, it is impor­tant that the increased use of cloud is done in a safe and secure way. This is essen­tial, giv­en that just as the use of cloud com­put­ing has increased in 2020, so have the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty risks and the com­plex­i­ty of attacks focused on cloud ser­vices. 

This is why in the com­ing weeks techUK will pub­lish a guide to offer infor­ma­tion, advice and sup­port to busi­ness lead­ers look­ing to increase and scale up their use of cloud ser­vices, as part of their post-COVID recov­ery strat­e­gy, in a secure and safe way. Please vis­it our web­site to get in touch and get involved.