A recent research by IDC, predicted that cloud computing would create about 14 million jobs worldwide. These will all be direct jobs like those of developers. There will be an equal number of indirect jobs which will be affected by this concept. This means cloud computing will start pervading each and every job in every organization. Every job will either be enhanced or diminished with the introduction of the cloud. The effect of the cloud will be so intense that with time to come; many job descriptions will integrate the cloud in their profile. There are five ways in which this concept will reshape the way business is conducted.
Information technology is going to become a shared responsibility which will not be confined to a particular department but will include all the departments in the organization. Executives, managers, and professionals will have an increasing access to new and improved computing resources which can be easily procured using the humble credit card. Simultaneously, the continuous evolution in IT, IT professionals will start being embedded within the core lines of businesses, vis-à-vis their roles in separate IT departments. Also IT budgets of businesses will shoot up even more than that of standalone IT departments.
More and more innovation is possible on the job, with failure becoming just an option. With cloud computing having laboratories for its research and testing, continuous improvements will result in the concept. As it is, this concept has lowered the entry barriers for start-ups for exploiting computing resources, with a reduction in the cost of cloud computing infrastructure brought down as a result of the continuous research and development. With new ideas being incubated and tested and new initiatives being introduced, it will not be long before businesses disentangle themselves from the corporate budget cycles.
End-users are designing their own applications. Using the cloud computing platform, even non-tech professionals would quickly and easily be able to construct interfaces using Google Maps to plot the data points. “Self-service business intelligence” is a capability that each business dreams of. But, IT departments who are overworked often take weeks or even months to deliver interfaces to solve urgent business problems. But, now with cloud computing, even non-tech people are designing their own applications using designated templates and application programs. For example, a sales manager needing a portal to access the regional sales data from a newly acquired subsidiary can easily do it from an internal or public cloud system.
Cloud computing has given rise to a DIY economy in which outsourcing is becoming passé. With the advent of cloud computing, services like outsourcing are now rendered redundant. This is because, it is omnipresent. Organizations now rely on an increasingly diverse bouquet of services provided in-house and from outside service providers. There will be more stress on service brokerages who can leverage the capabilities of the cloud to deliver services tailored to client requirements. They are not owners of any methods or services of production, but are merely service providers.
The final disruption that cloud computing will cause will be in the fact that everyone will become a technology company, regardless of their core business. Whatever your business model or product or service, embracing cloud computing will give you tech capability which in turn will prove advantageous for your business. Many vendors will use the cloud to provide cutting edge services and products to their customers, not to mention that some of them may even let out their own cloud computing capabilities to third-party vendors for a decent amount in the process, making the cloud a profitable asset.
