Study Finds Cloud on the Increase, but not Being Used Effectively

By Michael Guta
Contributing Writer

The flexibility, automation, scalability and access cloud computing has introduced to ICT is responsible for increasing productivity levels across the board and lowering costs. According to a study sponsored by Cisco (News - Alert), cloud adoption is going mainstream, driven mainly by cloud-native applications, including security and the Internet of Things (IoT) cloud-based solutions. However, not everyone is leveraging the full capability of the technology to maximize the value of cloud within their organization.

The study titled, “Cloud Going Mainstream: All Are Trying, Some Are Benefiting; Few Are Maximizing Value” was sponsored by Cisco and developed by International Data Corporation (IDC (News - Alert)). Participants in the survey were executives responsible for IT decisions in more than 6,100 organizations across 31 countries that are deploying private, public and hybrid clouds in their IT environments.

Although 68 percent of organizations have revealed they use cloud to help drive business outcomes, more than two thirds, or 69 percent, don't have mature strategies in place. This leaves a miniscule 3 percent of organizations who have optimized cloud strategies to experience better business outcomes. There were five different levels of cloud maturity identified by IDC in the study: ad hoc, opportunistic, repeatable, managed and optimized.

“As this global cloud adoption study reveals, most organizations are still attempting to optimize their cloud strategies, but the 3 percent of organizations that have reached the highest level of adoption are reaping the most benefits. It also underscores that multicloud environments are the default scenario among a majority of companies worldwide, and successfully managing multicloud is a key attribute of mature cloud strategies,” said Robert Mahowald, Group VP, SaaS (News - Alert) & Cloud SW, IDC.

The challenges of achieving cloud maturity are considerable according to the study, which include capabilities and skill gaps, lack of a well-defined strategy and roadmap, legacy siloed organizational structures, and Information Technology/Line of Business (IT/LOB) misalignment.

When it comes to the financial benefits of cloud technology, organizations that are labeled “cloud advanced” have experienced $3 million in additional revenue per cloud-based application, while at the same time saving $1 million. According to the study, the revenues were the result of sales of new products and services, gaining new customers faster, or accelerated ability to sell into new markets.

The organizations with mature cloud solutions have optimized the technology to gain more benefits from the deployments they have in place. The vast majority, or 95 percent, of these leading organizations have multiple private and public clouds based on economics, location and governance policies built in a hybrid IT environment.

The process of adopting a new technology by an organization is not as easy as it may seem. Driving business outcomes is one of many issues that have to be considered in today's highly dynamic digital ecosystem. Cloud is proving it can deliver on many of those points for a large number of businesses, and as the technology continues to mature, there won't be any reason for anyone not to use it.