How Cloud Computing Changed the World, Opportunities to Watch Out Today and Post-COVID Era
Quarter One Of Twenty-Twenty-One is Nearly Over. I hope you’re all doing well. We know the pandemic is not yet over but allow me to share with you some of the opportunities that we have ahead of us, most especially if you are interested to learn more about how to integrate the field of tech or cloud computing in your lives as this is the area I am immersed with on a day-to-day basis.
While the past 365 days may appear different due to the pandemic, there are still a lot of things to be grateful for.
Thank God for Technology — I am bringing this point not to romanticize the pandemic but if there is a silver lining in the situation we’re all in, we’re better off today with internet and technology which kept us all sane while we isolate at home.
The way we handled the pandemic would surely be different if we will remove the presence of today’s tech advancements and the internet.
If COVID-19 happened in the ‘80s where there’s no internet, it’s going to be a different story, right?
Over the past year, we’ve seen how businesses closed when the world shut its doors to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Among 30,000 SMBs surveyed by Facebook in partnership with OECD and World Bank in over 50 countries, 26% reported that they had closed between January and May 2020 (see full report from the source, here).
From that point, organizations have leverage their survival through the available tools with the help of the internet – majority if not, all have gone DIGITAL.
Going digital, could mean differently based on your background. In my perspective, allow me to define it in the perspective of a business owner where it means moving the day-to-day operations of a business to the internet, with the ultimate goal of limiting the physical interactions and capital expenses as part of following social distancing health protocol, and attracting customers the right way, as the foot traffic moved online as well.
As you may have observed, the clear winners of the Pandemic are the following that have helped organizations globally and allowed individuals thrive in the new normal:
Hyperscale Cloud Providers
AWS is still the biggest player in this space, but Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are growing fast.
Collectively, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud earned 58% of the industry’s revenues. For the full year, cloud spending was up 33% to $142 Billion vs $107 Billion in 2019.
The pandemic has indeed accelerated the cloud infrastructure spending of organizations worldwide through remote work and online games.
Overall in 2020, the Demand for cloud services stayed strong across all enterprise customer segments, including industries most affected by the pandemic, such as retail and manufacturing.
“Large projects that were postponed earlier in the year are being re-prioritized, led by application modernization, SAP migrations and workplace transformation. Healthcare, financial services and pharmaceuticals are among the industries leading the way, but even those under most pressure are diverting investments to cloud, opening up new revenue streams and diversifying business models. At the same time, small and medium-sized businesses continue to turn to cloud services to help them maintain their operations and control costs. ”
Source: Canalys (February 2021)
Worldwide Increased Demand for Personal Computer
With the recent changes in the academe, where classes are moved online and work from home setup are in place, the demand in new hardware also surged during the pandemic.
Gartner Says COVID-19 Drives Highest Consumer PC Demand in 10 Years
In 2020, the worldwide shipments totaled 275 million units in 2020, a 4.8% increase from 2019. This was the highest annual growth for the worldwide PC market since 2010.
Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface), but not Chromebooks or iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (January 2021)
In the other part of the hardware form-factor spectrum, while the PC shipments’ increase in 2020, the worldwide sales of smartphones have declined 10.5%.
I believe the numbers dictate consumer preference of prioritising a refreshed PC suitable for remote work than getting a newer smartphone.
The 365-Day Social Media Spike
Social Media has given us the opportunity to stay afloat, connected with our friends and loved ones as we continue to observe social distancing.
As of January 2021, there are 490 million new social media users over the past 12 months. The said number contributes to more than 4.2 billion social media around the world today which equates to more than 53% of the total global population.
With the surge, it’s still apparent that Facebook still leads the market share as the world’s most-used social media platform with 2.740 billion monthly active users.
Source: DataReportal (January 2021)
Food and Grocery Delivery Services
We’ve seen the boom of the so-called Cloud Kitchens during the pandemic.
If you are from the Philippines, you are one of the millions who have used either Grab or FoodPanda.
Cloud kitchens are restaurants built around food delivery rather than sit-down service, and they are increasing in popularity as COVID-19 disrupts the industry.
These businesses are booming not only in the Philippines but across Asia and are convincing big names like the Jollibee Foods, Singapore’s Grab and Thailand’s Central Restaurants Group to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the emerging sector.
Cloud kitchens are nothing new. But while takeout-only pizza joints have been around for decades, Asia’s cloud kitchen boom did not explode until recently as food delivery services became uber-popular.
While most of us miss the pre-pandemic dining experience, the emergence of Cloud Kitchens have helped us cope up in our food cravings and kept us safe from COVID-19.
Once again, Imagine a world without technology while under a pandemic.
Source: Nikkei Asia (February 2021)
The Common Denominator
If we layout these companies and trends in a big table, they all have one in common, they are all leveraging Cloud Computing technologies to connect and service their end-consumers.
Without a cloud-based infrastructure where most of these apps are currently hosted, we won’t have these social-distancing approved luxuries in the new normal.
Your Opportunities in the New Normal
While these brands are clearly winning by getting more and more market share, allow me to shift your mindset and convince you to look at the opportunities you can take advantage of, for yourself in terms of growing your career or even increasing your net worth.
The Gig Economy is growing. There are a bunch of online platforms like Fiverr, Grab, Lazada, Shoppee that allows us to participate to fulfill our financial needs.
Gig Economy is a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as supposed to permanent jobs.
As for Fiverr, you can get freelance jobs you can do online. For Grab, you may do a side hustle in becoming a driver or rider. For Lazada and Shopee, you can open your own online store and earn additional income.
The Rise of Retail Investors. Are you familiar with Robinhood? To those who are not yet familiar, Robinhood is an online brokerage app that broke the internet in 2020 which enabled the millennials and enthusiasts in the USA to become an investor of their most loved and trusted brands.
If you are from the Philippines, know that we didn’t have this luxury in the past. Today, we can open an account in a different online brokerage, Etoro which will also allow you to invest in markets outside the Philippine Stock Exchange — ranging from companies listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ to name a few starting at a starting capital of only $200.
Plus you get $50 when you register and fund your account using my link: https://etoro.tw/2DYplYJ
And of course, if you want to start investing in Philippine-based companies listed under the Philippine Stock Exchange, you can open an account via COL Financial and a starting capital of PHP 1,000 and above.
There are platforms such as Investa to help you get started in your Stock Market journey. I will also center my next article on this topic because I want to give back and help increase the Financial Literacy rate of Filipinos in my own little ways.
Opportunities from 2021–2030. If more and more businesses globally are considering the move to cloud, the demand to make it happen is also surging.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and there are a lot of emerging industries that you should watch out — maybe some of these could be part of your career roadmap!
To give you a glimpse of what’s coming, allow me to share these industries to take note of from the Ark Invest 2021 Big Ideas Report:
- Deep Learning
- Cloud Computing with ARM Chipsets
- Virtual Worlds
- Digital Wallets & Cryptocurrencies | Financial Technology
- Blockchain
- Electric Vehicles
- Automation
- Autonomous Ride-Hailing
- Delivery Drones
- Orbital Aerospace
- 3D Printing
- Genomics
Now that you have seen the keywords, now I’ll leave the next steps to you. Majority of the information about these industries are now available over the internet.
Hang on there, we will all get through this pandemic. Even with limited resources, there are still a lot of things we can do beyond our control as long as we have our computing device and internet.
I do hope that this article somehow inspired you to fresh new perspectives that I have personally adopted in my day-to-day at work and my side hustle as a retail investor.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to the next one. Stay safe!
