Authors: Allan Meace and John Lilek

Over the past few years, an increasing number of organizations have been turning to hybrid cloud — the combination of public and private clouds.

International Data Corporation even predicts that over 90% of organizations worldwide will rely on a hybrid cloud-supported environment by 2022.

It’s clear that there’s a growing adoption rate — but what exactly is driving the demand for it?

To understand why hybrid cloud exists today, we simply need to look at people and their evolving behaviors. This is because hybrid cloud has become an essential approach that organizations can use to satisfy end users based on their changing needs and expectations.

People control technology, after all, not vice versa.

Discover why human habits and the emergence of new communication and consumption behaviors within society are fueling the need for a cloud-based approach below.

Demographics Have Redefined Effective Service

The earth’s population has been changing rapidly. Not only are humans living longer thanks to advances in healthcare, but millions of people are also working remotely due to COVID-19, a trend that had started prior to the pandemic.

Now, people are constantly searching for applications that can best serve their new needs and satisfy every expectation as they navigate their ever-changing lives.

Service providers across industries have responded to these demographic changes by constantly improving end-user experiences.

For example, one of FlexITy’s systems, GetWell Inpatient, provides hospital patients with effective, personalized health support services.

“In the financial services industry, you can even negotiate an entire mortgage and sign it without ever stepping into a bank,” states Louis Gervais, COO at FlexITy. “What this means is that demographics have redefined the way that business leaders must offer their services.”

Everyone is a consumer, including your employees. In other words, people expect the same level of service quality from work applications that they get from their everyday experiences as a consumer.

Organizations that offer any service must rethink their offerings to meet people’s expectations through relevant, convenient, and user-friendly experiences.

Cloud-enabled applications allow businesses to further improve the quality of their services, enhancing experiences for employees and customers, regardless of whether they’re home or at the office.

Derisking Organizations

While a significant portion of the global workforce currently works from home, this wasn’t always the case. It has been challenging historically to allow people to work remotely before the pandemic hit.

Fast forward to the present, and many organizations are conducting their operations entirely online successfully — all because they have enough confidence in the technology.

It’s now crucial to use cloud-enabled applications to grant employees secure work access. That way, staff can access their work safely without any downtime during disruptions and emergencies.

Unfortunately, the sudden rush to move entire organizations to a remote work environment during the pandemic opened the door to a wide range of security threats. Keep in mind that these security dangers are not a direct result of remote technology. Many security-specific emergencies that businesses are facing occur because IT teams have not had a chance to close all of the security gaps around their organizations.

“You may have had only a small fraction of people working from home before COVID-19, but now, you could have 90% of your employees working remotely,” says Gervais. “It’s necessary to rethink your entire security posture and governance strategies.”

Hybrid cloud contributes to empowering IT teams to reduce cyber risk and stay up to date with security, preventing downtime and allowing them to focus on improving their business operations.

Increasing Productivity

Until recently, we all have depended on multiple platforms to solve a single business problem.

Take employee training, for instance.

Organizations often required many different software platforms to train new staff members properly. As a result, the end-user experience was typically inconsistent, and business leaders would likely have limited visibility into training progress and onboarding.

Upon realizing that software solutions needed to be streamlined and consolidated, embracing cloud-based solutions became the logical next step for organizations.

According to Gervais, “[in] a cloud environment, you’re combining all critical functionalities into a simple approach and automating processes to improve productivity.”

However, achieving a truly productive cloud workspace will take effort from IT leaders.

IT teams must invest time and energy into understanding what business outcomes they want to respond to in the future rather than just dealing with problems and emergencies as they arise. Organizations that can master this mindset by aligning technology to their long-term business requirements will be more successful when utilizing the cloud as an approach to resolving business issues.

Ultimately, humans change — and organizations need to be flexible enough to continue supporting employees and customers properly as the level of their needs increases. Hybrid cloud enables organizations to more easily adapt to changes in human behavior, resulting in consistent, relevant services that people are willing to subscribe to and use.

Are you starting to think about implementing a cloud-based approach for your business? Review some in-depth cloud adoption best practices from our final article in this series, “Hybrid Cloud is a Journey, Not a Destination”