Small and Medium Enterprises and Cloud Technology–Challenges and Opportunities during COVID19

Abstract

The cloud technology has proven its benefits during the lockdown situation. Small and Medium scale industries are severely impacted during pandemic due to multi fold reasons. This paper depicts the situation of SMEs who were prepared for digital journey using cloud technologies verses underprepared SMEs. It covers the cloud basics and usefulness of cloud technology for Small and Medium scale industries. It also provides views for selecting right option to maximize the benefits for SMEs. Software as a Service (SaaS) offering has proved more beneficial for SMEs over Landscape as a Service (LaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). The key benefits of SaaS such as SMEs do not require hardware and software installations at their premises. The Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) extend support for installation and customization for their products. They takes care of maintenance and various upgrades necessary during product life cycle. These distinct advantages of cloud technology became more relevant during Pandemic situation for SMEs.The SMEs being vital part of our economy, the cloud service providers are coming up with various offerings to encourage them for cloud technology adoption. The Pandemic period is also assisted CSPs to improvise their services. The increased cyber-attacks strengthened the security mechanism while the surge in the network usages emphasized the need of optimization code for better user experience. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up new opportunities for cloud technology in health care sector. The new normal has brought less social contacts and more usages of technology means for daily interaction. Cloud technology has become a part of business continuity planning and brought new perspective during COVID-19 pandemic. The cloud-based workforce collaboration tools and round the clock remote accessibility mitigate the major risks during natural disasters. It is time to adopt cloud technology by those SMEs who have not considered cloud adoption as an option in the first place.