2020 witnessed a mass shift to Cloud-based services, driven by lockdown restrictions and a rapid requirement to support large-scale remote working across the business. During the first Quarter alone, Cloud spending is estimated to have risen 37% to $29 billion.

For many organisations this shift was already in motion as part of a wider infrastructure transformation, breaking from a physical, on-premise IT paradigm to a service-based OpEx model,  supporting greater agility, elasticity and predictability. This has aligned with wider digital transformation ambitions and tech leaders playing a much more active, central and business-focussed role.

Whilst Cloud technology has driven a myriad of benefits with the organisation, it comes with a new set of business challenges and contractual distinctions, as well as security and re-skilling requirements. IT leaders must manage this change while navigating an increasing range of options; balancing the benefits of public, private and hybrid systems, while factoring overarching culpability for accessibility, affordability, security and regulatory compliance.

The inaugural Cloud First Summit will contextualise this shift within the technology landscape, looking at the trends, advancements, use-cases and the business impact of Cloud computing. The event will bring together senior IT, Digital and C-level personnel, providing an invaluable forum for knowledge exchange, discussion and high-level networking.