Why cloud is important and what are the risk factors?

The improvement in technology has changed our lifestyles, eating habits, and shopping preferences. As customers continue to identify the new options of technology, customer expectations and services are improving and the demand for new experiences continues to grow. 

With the introduction of virtual assistants, AI and customer self-service industries that include hospitability can deliver improved customer engagement. 

In 2015, as per a Bloomberg report, Federal agencies spent $2.4b on cloud towards infrastructure, support, and software implementation. The figure was up to $4.3b in 2018 and it is expected to gain to $5 billion in 2019. 

Cloud computing is about collaboration and efficient management where the employees need to communicate proficiently through it instead of using the traditional methods. 

But such implementations require improvement in several areas to empower businesses of all sizes to create and elevate the customer experience. 

It is, basically, a Software-as-a-Service, which provides users with a better way to manage, store and share documents. Applications on it can be accessed through an internet connection, and are particularly beneficial for SMBs that are struggling to manage data stores or everyday customer transactions. 

It provides fully functional applications, which can be gained for a subscription and can be upgraded with new functionalities effectively without any cost. 

Advantages of Cloud 

It offers options to reduce the cost of operation and provide better services. The implementation may require initial investments but provides a competitive edge to the companies. 

The progression in the sector, in artificial intelligence where people are concerned about the impact on their profession and in reducing workload, are changing, rather evolving at each stage of development. 

The companies need to integrate the latest versions to support the business operations in a better way to be able to fight the new competition as it can get positive customer interactions and help in improving customer service.  

Risks 

Several financial organizations are keen on moving to the cloud but such transitions are widely restricted by the complex regulatory requirements. A study by a Finastra survey on UK banks found 43 percent of the banks were keen to go on it but were unable to take advantage due to regulatory restrictions.  

It offers a safe alternative to conduct business but security issues have been a major problem. The leaders in the market include AWS that holds 32.3 percent of the market share in Q4 2018 and other companies involved are Azure, Google, Alibaba, and IBM. Many of the providers host SaaS-based services on the same platform. It, mainly, aims to spread the risk factors as the security aspect is not as strong as desired. 

Symantec's Cloud Security Threat Report states more than 53 percent of the workload have shifted to the cloud but 93 percent of the firms said they were storing data in more than none kind of environment and 69 percent said they were still storing data on-premises.