Amidst the increasingly complex market and unpredicted challenges today, many businesses have found solutions to business continuity in the cloud. However, while the cloud provides endless opportunities for innovation, what is its impact on the labour market and will it make some IT jobs obsolete?
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Cloud solutions offer countless benefits to both individuals and organisations, particularly employee empowerment.
Storing all data and information in the cloud means users can instantly access what they want as long as they have an internet connection. Therefore, they can effortlessly perform tasks at any time and from anywhere.
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Moreover, whenever an adjustment happens to documents, transactions, or ledgers stored in the cloud, or it is time to upgrade the system, updated versions will be launched and distributed immediately across the organisation.
Another added value is cost-saving. Cloud systems keep everything virtually instead of consuming enormous, valuable real estate like legacy on-premises solutions. Therefore, businesses could avoid overspending budgets on physical inventories as well as maintenance and replacement in the future.
Despite bringing immense benefits, will clouds necessarily be a threat to employment?
Although cloud solutions offer modern platforms, several components remain the same. The hardware must always be maintained during the lifecycle of the cloud infrastructure.
Thus, regardless of how advanced cyberspace is, it still needs specialists to look after its physical components, hardware, and networks. In other words, the cloud operating system and applications will continuously require care and maintenance by none other than dedicated IT specialists.
Contrary to common misconceptions, there are more IT jobs available today than ever before, and positions like helpdesk support or software developers are currently in high demand. And due to the emergence of cloud solutions, recruitment demand in the technology sector has skyrocketed.
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Cloud security, also known as cloud computing security, is a subset of cybersecurity. Unrivalled security is also the unique competitiveness that cloud solutions have to offer. However, with great power comes huge risk. Data breaches, data loss, system vulnerability, malicious fraud and account hijacking are becoming common.
Cloud security policies, hardware and software, best practices, techniques, procedures, and processes are fundamental in ensuring the integrity and security of a business' data, infrastructure, applications, and systems. This will usher in a new period of cybersecurity, which will unlock many potential vacancies for cybersecurity practitioners.
The ability to provide real-time visibility of cloud systems can enable organisations to become more data-driven. However, statistics record the annual ratio of data volumes is growing at 40%.
This tremendous and unstoppable growth calls for dedicated data analysts to help businesses understand insights from a pool of seemingly unrelated datasets.
Imagine a company without a data analyst presence (or dedicated software, which still requires human capabilities to build). There will not be reports, dashboards, or even visualisations to provide essential insights about customers, partners, and marketplaces.
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The modern cloud-based system will empower this field with loads of innovation. Along with that, the roles of people who can embrace the cloud and generate more prospects are undoubtedly in high demand. Marketing cloud specialists enable organisations to reach and engage a wider network of audiences simultaneously via different channels.
HR might be one of the few departments least threatened by the cloud in terms of occupation. Regardless of how much automation organisations can implement; things still need a human touch.
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The cloud empowers HR officers to automate various processes and tasks, enhance the candidate experience, and streamline the recruitment process within a few clicks.
Technology will continue to evolve. Newer, better, and more modern solutions will eventually replace legacy, outdated, and less efficient ones. Consequently, new market requirements, standards, and rules will force organisations to seek talents with suitable abilities.
On the other hand, employees must have adaptability, a sense of curiosity to learn skills and arm themselves with the needed knowledge to expand into wider horizons.
Rather than threatening our job security, cloud solutions are changing the way we work and creating more job opportunities. Education and a willingness to change are keys to protecting yourself from irrelevance. So, what is holding you back?