Cloud has been a hot topic in the technology industry for years now, and it can be easy to think every organization who plans to move to the cloud has already done it—but there is still a huge opportunity for partners. In a recent survey of IT professionals and executive leaders, 44% of respondents cited migrating more workloads to the cloud as an initiative to make progress on in 2024 and 43% cited moving from on-premises software to the cloud.

But even as the Cloud market continues to grow, there are and will continue to be shifts, in the way organizations move to the Cloud and how their Cloud journey may change. As a trusted advisor, partners need to be aware of a few key trends in the Cloud market to stay relevant to their end user customers.

Cloud optimization is going to be at the forefront of IT leaders’ minds—especially when it comes to cost

Organizations are continuing to look at how they are spending their technology budgets, including Cloud. In the 2023 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera, 62% of enterprises cited optimizing existing use of cloud (cost savings) and 42% of enterprises cited better financial reporting on cloud costs as initiatives for 2024.

Many companies moved workloads to the cloud very quickly to accommodate remote work during the pandemic. A lot of these companies, and others that have already moved some or all of their workloads to the Cloud may now be going back and re-evaluating their tools to make sure they have the right mix of Cloud products. This trend will continue in 2024 with an emphasis on cost optimization.

Partners can provide value to their end user customers by helping them evaluate their Cloud environments and recommending the appropriate Cloud tools to optimize costs (i.e.—moving less frequently used data to cold storage).

Artificial Intelligence is going to continue to dominate the conversation

It’s virtually impossible to be in the technology industry without hearing about AI on a regular basis—and that isn’t going to slow down in 2024. In fact, in IDC’s FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2024 Predictions, four of the ten trends listed included AI.

IDC predicts that in the next few years, more cloud applications will integrate AI, more organizations will implement AI and that 70% of enterprises will be looking to Cloud providers for Generative AI platforms along with additional tools. All this movement to AI is going to accelerate the technology skills gap with an estimated 80% of global organizations struggling to find skilled AI professionals to manage these tools.

Partners who haven’t started looking at AI run the risk of being left behind. Work now to set an AI strategy for your company and continue to evolve your practice.

Hybrid and multi-cloud architecture are becoming increasingly important to end users

IDC predicts that 65% of the G2000 will use multi-cloud set ups by 2025—and they’ll be working through the partner ecosystem to provide services and integration around it. There are a number of reasons why organizations look to hybrid cloud and multi-cloud solutions, including cost optimization, data security, and regulatory compliance needs.
IDC also predicts that many enterprises will turn towards hybrid cloud environments or move some data-heavy workloads back on-premises to help with Cloud costs and security concerns.

Cloud partners who continue to offer or specialize on only one platform are going to miss out on this growing marketing opportunity. If that sounds like you, consider adding additional cloud providers to your portfolio to offer your end users a more complete solution.

Cybersecurity and cloud continue to go hand in hand

As the industry evolves, so must cybersecurity—that will continue to be true in 2024 and beyond. As the industry has evolved to move to Cloud and other distributed environments, the need for security at the edge (rather than traditional on-premises security solutions) has given rise to organizations adopting a zero-trust methodology. IDC predicts a whopping 85% of the G2000 will rely on cloud providers and partners for zero-touch cloud security and provisioning over the next few years.

Cloud partners must understand how to secure their end users cloud environments, including everything from end users who are all-in on one public cloud to hybrid or multi-cloud sets up (where securely connecting different cloud environments also becomes a concern.

What to do next

As a cloud partner, it’s important to understand how these trends will affect your business this year and beyond with a holistic look at your business and what you’re able to offer your end users. None of these trends exist in a vacuum. As an example, AI can provide a way to optimize costs and enforce cybersecurity postures—or consider hybrid and multi-cloud sets ups: securely connecting these environments is critical to making this type of set up work both from a functional standpoint and from an optimization standpoint.

Keeping up with ever-changing technology trends can be daunting as a Cloud partner. TD SYNNEX provides training and enablement opportunities to help you evolve your Cloud business, as well as Cloud services and financial solutions to fill out your line card and transact in a way that makes sense for you and your end customers. For more information, read our 2024 predictions, reach out to your account manager or email us.