The Government of India is on a mission to make India a digitally empowered society. As part of this, it has started numerous initiatives of building public digital platforms, scaling up digital infrastructure, and implementing supportive policies. Enterprises in India have been transforming digitally via cloud adoption to adapt to the evolving market forces and customer needs. Cloud computing can bring technological transformation to the Indian economy making it more resilient and inclusive. According to a report by NASSCOM and Oliver Wyman, the cloud can bring a value of $310-$380 billion to India’s GDP in 2026, which will account for approximately 8% of GDP.
Drivers and barriers to cloud adoption in India
Drivers
Enterprises in India are moving or want to move to the cloud mainly to support growth, improve workplace productivity and enhance security and data privacy.
Leveraging the cloud, enterprises grow and transform by being able to launch their products quickly, reduce costs and offer improved customer experience. Cross-function collaboration and using the capabilities of service providers enable organizations to improve their productivity.
Barriers
Businesses can enjoy many benefits by moving to the cloud, however, certain barriers limit them from realizing the potential of the cloud.
A limited understanding of cloud features can pose a challenge to implement in a way to reap benefits. Integration of legacy systems or applications can also cause hindrances in the process of cloud adoption. Another barrier is the lack of in-house talent capable of bringing transformation through the cloud because of which businesses are not able to make use of the cloud in a better way.
Impact of the cloud on India
- As already discussed, the cloud has the potential to account for almost 8% of India’s GDP in 2026. Moreover, this is expected to grow 4 times over the next five years. Major industries contributing to this GDP growth will be Financial Services, Communication, Media & Entertainment, and Industrials.
- Cloud has the potential to generate 14 million jobs in 2026 which can increase by three times over the next five years.
- Cloud adoption can lead to industry competitiveness, accelerate innovation and create entrepreneurship opportunities in India.
- Industries and Governments will be able to offer enhanced customer service and improve productivity, and reliability.
- The cloud can accelerate the development of superior business offerings, promote research and development, and contribute to India’s Global Innovation index.
- The cloud can aid the entrepreneurial environment in the country and help build and scale new ventures.
India has the potential to position itself as a global hub for cloud services and cloud talent for which rapid cloud adoption across sectors is essential.
If businesses and governments do not move to the cloud timely, India could lose almost US$118 billion in GDP and 5 million job opportunities by 2026.
- If financial services do not modernize their infrastructure, they will find it difficult to keep up with their agile competitors like fintech.
- Core industries in India will not be able to compete against global players if they do not adopt cloud/edge computing.
- Slow cloud adoption may lead to India becoming a less attractive choice among investors, expats, and new businesses.
- Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are the backbone of the Indian economy. Without cloud-driven flexibility, they will find it difficult to scale and compete with known players.
How India can drive cloud adoption
- Industries must work based on a time-bound, cloud-oriented roadmap for timely cloud adoption. They must identify internal change drivers, provide awareness of local and global best practices, and set aside required resources.
- Service providers must promote cloud adoption by eliminating perception barriers, investing in proof of concepts, and offering financial and technical support, especially for SMBs.
- Government and Public Sector organizations must increasingly adopt the cloud through capacity building, country, and state-level progress dashboards, and making cloud purchases easy.
- The government must support the cloud services industry in India by setting a framework for data classification, privacy, and security that align with global standards.
- Academic institutions must strengthen formal education programs and industries must reskill their technology workforce to position India as a global hub of cloud talent.
Many businesses in India have started their cloud journey, but to scale and accelerate adoption, stakeholders must act timely and take major initiatives across cloud adoption, talent building, and regulatory support.
Source: Oliver Wyman
