Interesting survey results just released that indicate cost isn’t the highest factor in cloud adoption (yay – at last people are talking more about non-cost impacts of cloud) – Respondents believe compliance requirements, value and competitive advantage are the key drivers for cloud adoption. The survey polled 330 global CIOs and business execs in order to understand their motivators for moving to the cloud.
Some key findings:
Cloud adoption is driven by multiple factors.
- 80% of business executives cite better value as the a key driver for choosing cloud applications
- CIOs report a wide range of reasons for adopting cloud applications, including compliance requirements (58%), better value (53%), and competitive advantage (51%)
Employees like using cloud applications.
- 79% of those surveyed say that experience with cloud applications is beneficial
- 95% of CIOs say that IT employees want to gain expertise with cloud applications
- 83% of CIOs say they have no problem finding technical help for cloud applications
Outdated on-premise software is common.
- 61% of survey respondents say that critical applications have not been updated recently
- 14% say that they have business-critical software that has not been updated in over four years
- 28% of CIOs who have requirements for that business-critical software say they lack confidence in being compliant
MyPOV
Fodder for the punditry – but results inline with expectations. Businesses are starting to see that cloud is about more than cost savings but drives real value on a number of fronts. I’d be interested to dig in to the “value” responses here and see how many were a factor of the agility that cloud brings an organization. One assumes that the competitive advantage responses had much to do with being able to move more quickly with cloud and with traditional IT approaches.
No surprises that employees like cloud apps – while it’s not as simple as saying cloud is user-friendly while on-premise is not, the fact is that cloud application are, generally more recently created than on-premise ones and hence borrow many of the design and usability cues developed on more consumer focused applications – the net result of this is an experience which is easier to use, more intuitive and provides a better overall experience than more legacy apps.
Also no surprise about the outdated on-premise software – as I’ve mentioned many times before, IT budgets don’t have the scope to invest in moving legacy workloads, and updating applications is fraught with difficulty – the best outcome for these sorts of workloads is enabling mobile access to them through some kind of API strategy – it’s generally not about the application itself, it’s about the data and there is little need to move or update the entire application, rather a “bolt on an API” methodology delivers what the organization actually needs.
Some interesting results that seem to indicate an increasing maturity from cloud users.
(Cross-posted @ The Diversity Blog - SaaS, Cloud & Business Strategy)
Very great article talking about drivers for cloud adoption, BTW, if you are looking for fast and reliable replication and synchronization between cloud services like, Evernote Google Docs, please check out CloudHQ by clicking the link https://www.cloudhq.net/?utm_source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cloudave.com%2F24550%2Fdrivers-for-cloud-adoption-cio-research%2F&utm_medium=Pluggio&utm_campaign=Drivers%2Bfor%2BCloud%2BAdoption%E2%80%93CIO%2BResearch
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Great look at adoption Ben. I would hope the biggest reason for cloud adoption would be to help the organization strategically achieve new efficiencies, as well as improve flexibility and scalability. However far too often organization fail to map out their journey before jumping — making many deployment fizzle or struggle to realize promised benefits. People need to start with needs assessments (like VMWare and HP offer) and then strategically chose offerings and providers who make the most sense with their individualized needs.
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