Cloud adoption is on the rise among small and midsize businesses (SMBs), driven by the decreasing costs of basic cloud services.
According to a report by IT services and consulting firm Accenture commissioned by AWS, nearly half of all businesses across developed economies now use cloud to access tools previously only available to large enterprises with the resources to develop them internally.
The report found that cloud adoption can unlock nearly $80 billion in annual productivity gains for SMBs in the healthcare, education, and agriculture segments in the U.S. and $161 billion globally by 2030.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud provider, is leveraging its size advantage and operational efficiency to go after the SMB market. It has steadily cut prices for cloud services, and it offers a variety of programs and services designed to help SMBs adopt and use cloud technology.
One such program is the AWS SMB Analytics Program, which provides business owners with individualized guidance from AWS analytics experts. The program is designed to help SMBs use data to make better business decisions and improve their operations.
Another challenge that SMBs face is cybersecurity. Only 19% of decision-makers from midsize businesses and 24% from small businesses had confidence in their firm’s capacity to generate insight, according to a report by Forrester. Similarly, fewer than one-third of respondents expressed confidence in their ability to secure data assets as their operations expand.
The sources for this piece include an article in CIODIVE.
