Small and mid-sized business throughout the Americas are moving more of their activities to the cloud, indicating that business for cloud-based HCM solutions providers will expand rapidly in emerging markets like Central and South America.
Consultants who can help companies move to the cloud also are in a position to pursue new opportunities.
A new ISG Provider Lens study, Cloud Transformation/Operation Services & XaaS Report – Pan America, also provides further evidence that small and mid-sized companies see the cloud as a way to compete with larger enterprises.
SMBs throughout the Americas are moving more to the cloud, hinting that business for cloud-based HCM solutions providers will expand rapidly in emerging markets. Click To TweetAlso, while many enterprise-level companies are struggling to move away from their legacy systems, smaller businesses are finding advanced tools—such as analytics and cognitive computing systems—to be available and affordable in the cloud. That lets them take advantage of new technology without having to balance the requirements and expense of a full-blown transformation.
Besides the developed markets of the U.S. and Canada, the report covers nine South American countries, four Central American countries and Mexico. These developing markets face difficulties in funding technology investments, the report notes, but cloud services “free enterprises from costly infrastructure investment and allow companies of any size to improve production and, in the long term, improve economic equality.”
Cost-Efficient Cloud Solutions
Digital transformation efforts are daunting. Because of the challenges involved in migrating legacy systems to the cloud, many enterprises have adopted a hybrid cloud model, ISG said. At the same time, they’re realizing benefits of Platform as a Service offerings from specialized providers.
Meanwhile, many mid-market companies are moving to a single cloud approach, taking advantage of Software as a Service to replace legacy solutions in areas such as ERP and CRM. (We’ll point out that a similar trend has been growing in HR technology for some time.)
“Infrastructure costs and access to technology were once barriers to competition, but the cloud allows access to a broad range of software, platforms and services,” noted Esteban Herrera, partner and global leader of ISG Research.
The report found significant cost savings for companies that move to the cloud. Those savings come from areas such as automation, infrastructure reliability and improvements to software release and change-management processes. In case studies where cost savings were identified, ISG said, the average savings was 38 percent.
The report also found a growing reliance on cloud consulting services. Given the growing number of complex tools entering the market, that’s no surprise. “The flood of innovation makes it extremely important that businesses receive guidance,” Herrera said.
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