Majority of Indian organizations planning to leverage cloud platforms for digital innovation: IDC

As building digital IT infrastructure supporting resilient operations and pervasive experiences becomes a key priority, organizations in India are re-strategizing their IT spending plans. Accelerating investment in an agile cloud infrastructure is seen as a part of the solution to the challenges arising from the spread of the pandemic COVID-19. More than 60% of the Indian organizations plan to leverage cloud platforms for digital innovation based on IDC COVID-19 impact survey.

"Cloud continues to be the underpinning platform for all digital transformation initiatives and has therefore seen an acceleration in demand. Strategic investments in technology will become imperative to minimize the adverse impact and make businesses more resilient. The role of providers will become crucial in helping organizations flatten the curve and leverage cloud in their next normal," says Rishu Sharma, Principal Analyst for Cloud & Artificial Intelligence at IDC India.

India public cloud services (PCS) market is projected to touch USD 7.1 billion by 2024 growing at a CAGR of 20.3% between 2019-2024. Cloud serves as a foundation to modernize IT and businesses by providing flexibility, scalability, and agility. Although most organizations in India have adopted cloud at some stage, the current pandemic situation has now enabled organizations to spend more on public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions, and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

From a segment perspective, SaaS forms the largest component of the overall public cloud services market in India, followed by IaaS and PaaS. With the changing strategy, over 56% of the Indian organizations plan to increase their spend on SaaS services, as a result of COVID-19. In 2019, the top two providers in the SaaS segment accounted for nearly 52% of the total SaaS market. In the IaaS segment, the top two providers accounted for over 78% in 2019.

"COVID-19 significantly impacted organizations looking at cloud for business continuity and gaining resiliency. Organizations are planning to leverage cloud for digital innovation and accessing innovative ecosystems, in addition to gaining flexibility and meeting up additional demands," says Swapnil Shende, Senior Market Analyst for artificial intelligence at IDC India.