Gartner Says Cloud Will Become a Business Necessity by 2028

Gartner’s forecast unveils a pivotal shift in cloud computing’s role, transitioning from a disruptive force to an indispensable component essential for maintaining competitiveness in business landscapes.

Cloud computing expenditure is on a relentless upward trajectory. Forecasts indicate a staggering rise, with end-user spending projected to reach $679 billion in 2024 and anticipated to surpass $1 trillion by 2027.

Driving Forces Behind Cloud Adoption

Milind Govekar, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, highlights organizations’ active investments in cloud technology driven by its potential to foster innovation, instigate market disruptions, and enhance customer retention, crucial for gaining a competitive edge. Despite recognizing its technical advantages, few organizations have fully realized its potential for comprehensive business transformation. Consequently, cloud usage is spearheading a new wave of disruption propelled by artificial intelligence (AI), unlocking significant business value on a grand scale.

Cloud’s Dual Role: Disruptor and Enabler

In the present landscape, the cloud serves dual roles: as a transformative disruptor revolutionizing traditional computing paradigms and as a facilitator enabling new capabilities such as elasticity, rapid CI/CD, serverless functions, and AI-driven processes. Embracing these capabilities necessitates a strategic evaluation of skill investments, operational restructuring, and fostering seamless team collaboration for effective automation adoption.

Cloud’s Future: A Business Necessity

Cloud computing is set to evolve further, transitioning from an innovation facilitator to a business disruptor and eventually solidifying its status as an indispensable business necessity.

As an innovation facilitator, cloud technology empowers organizations to widely disseminate platform business concepts, leveraging its core technology for interconnections, scalability, aggregation, and analytical capabilities, fundamentally reshaping traditional business models.

“By leveraging the cloud provider ecosystem, organizations can introduce groundbreaking products and services—imagine fraud prevention solutions for used cars by tire manufacturers or swift vaccine development through cloud-based machine learning for pharmaceutical companies,” explains Govekar.

By 2028, most organizations are projected to transform into fully digital entities adept at perceiving and responding to evolving business and market dynamics. As cloud computing integrates deeply into business operations, CIOs and IT leaders will need to implement highly efficient cloud operating models to effectively accomplish their business objectives, emphasizes Govekar.