The Shift to Cloud Computing- Will it Shift the Jobs?

Consider a scenario, where a person has established a new business. Two of his most important needs, a strong base of clients and sound infrastructure are to be met. Cloud computing presents a viable solution to the latter. It is the effective and efficient solution to store, transfer, and access large pools of data without incurring major investments on IT infrastructures in companies, especially start-ups, which have limited funds.

Nearly 70 percent of small and medium businesses, which have shifted to cloud computing, have been able to save big amounts of money to reinvest in their businesses. As a result, most companies seek to create their data warehouses on cloud servers nowadays. Further, cloud computing has revolutionized the way customers and company’s connect. The interactions, queries, and responses are swift and based in real time. Here are some critical advantages of cloud computing for small and large businesses alike:

• Cost Savings: Businesses, small or big, exist to earn money while keeping operational costs at minimum. Cloud computing provides a suitable way to save large sums on IT infrastructure with zero in-house storage and application requirements. Other additional costs, like power, administration, and maintenance also reduce when there is no infrastructure on-premise to worry about.
• Reliability: Cloud computing services are certainly more reliable and consistent. When a business enters into an agreement with a cloud service provider, they are assured of 24X7 availability through 365 days of a year. Further, in case one server fails, application and services can be easily transferred to another one.
• Manageability: Since a business saves on managing in-house operations on IT, it can use those funds for other operations, like marketing. Further, cloud service providers simplify management through centralized administration of resources, and service level agreements with various vendors. Infrastructural updates and maintenance are also managed by the service providers. A business simply enjoys the benefits of quality web based user interface.
• Strategic Edge: Time for procurement of various IT services is significantly reduced, which gives an added advantage to businesses to use new applications without any extra costs in virtually no time. It further helps businesses save time on building technology, and focus completely on other key objectives.

The cloud computing space in India is growing and will continue to do so. The digital landscape has been transformed significantly as India develops and moves up in the digital value chain. According to a report by Gartner, a technology research firm, the cloud market in India alone is expected to reach over $3 billion by the end of this year, which is an almost five-fold increase from 2012. The direct benefit of cloud computing has been primarily reaped by the small and medium business (SMB) segment. This sector employs about 40 percent of the total workforce and is growing at a phenomenal rate of 8 percent every year. Technology forecasts imply that if all the SMB’s adopt to cloud computing, its market in India could reach $ 56 billion and create a whopping 1.1 million jobs in the near future.

It is evident with present trends of IT industry in India that cloud computing has a bright scope for Indian companies and it is bound to go up. What is also going up is the manpower requirement for upcoming service providers in India. It is indicated that there will be massive increase in number cloud service providers, including global giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft setting to roll out their India plans. And it will incur huge investments in research and development professionals and those who can manage day-to-day technological operations and other related work.

To implement the plans of making India a cloud technology hub, a strong virtual backbone is necessary. In this scenario, cloud computing in India will not shift the jobs, but it will merely displace them to different sectors where more manpower is required and in fact create bright future opportunities in the field.

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