We are living through a period of unprecedented technology-enabled change. In this era of radical transformation, business cycles have been compressed from years or decades to weeks and days. The most visible example of this shift came in spring 2020, when the world’s biggest companies transferred hundreds of thousands of workers from offices to homes. What might once have been an intractable challenge was completed quickly and successfully.
The pandemic has been the catalyst for many other innovations, from the adoption of hybrid working to the creation of new online channels to market. Across all these innovations, one technology above all others is the enabler: cloud computing. Ground-level developments in cloud technologies, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), have provided the foundations for businesses to shift their businesses models effectively. On top of this cloud-enabled base, companies have adopted Software as a Service (SaaS) applications to transform how employees and customers access services over the web.