Cloud Computing to Create More Jobs around the Globe

IT experts around the world have almost the same predictions that cloud computing will continue to create thousands of jobs in the coming years. A research study was commissioned by Microsoft, which was conducted by IDC in India, Canada and South Africa to determine how many jobs will be available in these regions by 2015. The results predicted that more than 2 million jobs will be available in India by the end of 2015. This is just but a small portion of the predicted 14 million jobs across the globe in the coming years ahead.

The results in India showed that more jobs will be created because of small and medium-scaled business (SMB) startups whose businesses are mainly on media and communications. It will be followed by software manufacturer industries and the banking companies. These figures will account to more than 50% of the entire job placements.

General Manager of customer and partner experience of Microsoft India, Ram Kumar Pichai said, “IT/ITES industry has generated jobs in various ways. At one point in the Y2K era mainframes provided jobs for Indian software professionals. Then came the client server computing which fueled the next wave of growth for the Indian service industry. The trend was further accelerated by the BPO sector. Now cloud is going to be the next disruptive job creator for the Indian IT industry. India has emerged as the IT service center of the world. But at the same time it has also become the innovation center of the world.”

In Canada, there is an expected surge of 70,000 jobs including data hosting and app server hosting. John Weigelt, National Ttechnology Officer (NTO) of Microsoft Canada said most of the jobs will be from admin, marketing, non-tech related tasks including carpentry or plumbing as required by SMBs. 14,500 of these jobs will be focused in Toronto, 6,000 in Vancouver and the rest will spread across major and key cities across Canada.

“Cloud has an impact across Canada. Often we think of pockets of innovation in the country, be they Vancouver or Toronto, but it’s interesting to note that the cloud has a positive economic impact across the Canadian economy,” Weigelt said.

Canada also experiences the change in business management and how jobs are created as a result of cloud computing. Many startups are finding their way into the cloud and are positively thriving. They found the cloud very helpful in terms of financing aid during the early stage of the business and when they have gained leverage that will be the time to put in more money for the business.

Suresh Bhat, Extreme Venture Partners associate said, “Cloud has changed the way we make our investment decisions. We don’t have to invest as early in companies who just have ideas and don’t have a product. They can build stuff themselves using the cloud. The shift from heritage systems to cloud computing has had a big impact on the startup scene. “The cloud paradigm has really shifted the way things are. Five or 10 years ago, people weren’t depending on the cloud as much, maybe for liability issues, but now I think the cloud has become quite predominant now in the startup scene.”

Even a third-world country like South Africa (SA) benefits from the steam caused by the cloud. Microsoft says it will open new opportunities to create 145,000 jobs as a result of SMB startups in SA. Most of the jobs to be created will be from the financial industries, manufacturing plus media and communications. In addition to this, the SA government and cloud retailers will contribute in the job creation in the region.

Mteto Nyati, Microsoft Managing director of SA said, “The cloud is making a real difference for businesses today: powering productivity, cutting costs and freeing up IT staff to focus on more mission-critical work. But this study suggests it’s also got the potential to help restore economic health.”

Overall, the report said that cloud-enabled jobs across the globe will create cost savings for companies. These additional budgets will be placed in two major areas including business growth initiatives from sales and marketing, operations and engineering. The other area that will take more of the budget will be towards software development and design, which means more IT positions, will be open.

“For most organisations, cloud computing is a no-brainer when considering it enables massive return on investment and flexibility. A common misperception is cloud computing is a job eliminator, but in truth it will be a job creator — a major one. And job growth will occur across continents and throughout organizations of all sizes, because emerging markets, small cities and small businesses have the same access to cloud benefits as large enterprises or developed nations.” said the chief research officer and senior vice-president at IDC, John F Gantz.