According to Gartner, worldwide public cloud revenue will grow to $266.4 billion in 2020, up 17% from $227.8 billion last year.

We may only be a few weeks into the new decade but one thing we know for sure is that enterprise cloud isn’t going anywhere any time soon. To help you make the most out of cloud in 2020, we’ve put together a list of the top three enterprise cloud trends that are set to make an impact this year.

#1 Say hello to hybrid multicloud

It may be hard to believe but only one-fifth of enterprise applications run in the cloud, according to Forrester research. But as cloud adoption rises, companies are increasingly prioritising hybrid and multicloud options. And vendors are having to cooperate with each other, resulting in somewhat unlikely agreements between enterprise cloud competitors. Vendors have had to embrace the multicloud push, accepting “we know we aren’t going to be the only cloud that you use, but we do want to be a cloud that you use,” Jeremy Roberts, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research, told CIO Dive.

#2 IT and finance shake hands

Cloud will save you money but only when you manage and monitor your usage effectively. All too often, we see businesses placing a workload in the cloud and receiving a frightful bill at the end of the month. When buying technology using service-based models, it can be easy to lose track of your usage and overspend as a result. As such, cost visibility is a must through a Cloud Expense Management Solution. This requires collaboration between your finance and engineering teams who need to budget, make predictions and plan for cloud expenses. TechTarget writes: “You can’t simply trust that public cloud is cheaper. It is important to change your mindset and understand that, when things are cheap in an on-premises infrastructure, they may cost more in cloud. Without preparation, you will just throw money out the window”.

#3 Security takes centre stage

According to IBM, around 60% of IT decision makers rated security as a critical factor to consider when selecting a cloud vendor. In 2020, we will see the introduction of tools that uncover important security insights, respond to incidents faster and centralise your entire cloud ecosystem.

Tying into the previous points about hybrid multicloud and automation, in 2020 more and more vendors are working to automate cloud security. Managing security in a multicloud environment can prove difficult and security automation represents cloud vendors’ efforts to help businesses streamline the process. In addition to this, the use of cloud services adds further complexity to the identity and access management (IAM) equation. If you’re accessing apps hosted on the cloud, you need to be having conversations about how to manage identities and protect personally identifiable information.

As every company becomes a technology company it is more difficult to distinguish between business strategies and IT strategies. And in 2020 we will see these budding tech businesses working to unleash the full potential of the cloud. At Nebula, we’re always writing about how the latest technology trends are affecting different industries. If you want to access these and other insights you should subscribing to our monthly newsletter by completing the form below.