The discussion of whether the cloud will fundamentally change how businesses operate is long over. Any remaining doubters need only look at some of the latest statistics to grasp this concept: the global public cloud market is predicted to hit $236 billion in 2020, 70% of organizations have one application in the cloud by 2016, or the pronouncement from one leading analyst firm stating that “by 2020, a corporate ‘no-cloud’ policy will be as rare as a ‘no-internet’ policy is today.”
The real question for late or partial adopters is no longer “how will the cloud change my business?” The question is, “how has the cloud already changed my business, and the business of my competitors?” By looking at the recent history of cloud computing in the business world, a sea of changes ranging from how companies organize themselves to best practices in customer relations are apparent. These seismic shifts — the most prominent five of which are described below — should cause even the most hardened luddite to contemplate the transformations still to come.