The vast majority of senior executives worldwide say their
organizations have already moved at least some business activities
to the Cloud and expect 2012 investment to skyrocket, according to
KPMG's global cloud study.* According to the report 81% of
businesses are either planning, are in early or advanced stages of
experimentation or already have full-on cloud implementations.
Almost one quarter of executives said their organization already
runs all core IT services on the Cloud (10 percent) or is in
transition to do so (13 percent).
Tudor Aw, KPMG's head of technology in the UK
comments: "What the survey shows is that 'cloud'
is becoming more of a business and not just a technology
conversation. In these harsh economic times, cloud computing should
be considered by all companies that strive to reduce
costs. Cloud adoption is quickly shifting from a
competitive advantage to an operational necessity, enabling
innovation that can create new business models and will impact the
long-term growth opportunities and competitiveness of
businesses.
The survey's respondents were made up from organizations that
either will use the Cloud or provide Cloud services.
Other key findings of the report:
- Economic factors were cited by 76 percent of both groups
as an important driver for Cloud adoption
- 80 percent said the switch to Cloud was driven by efforts to
improve processes, offering more agility across the
enterprise
- 79 percent of Cloud users and 76 percent of providers said the
Cloud provided technical benefits and in some cases improvements
that they otherwise could not gain from their own data
centers
- 76 percent said the use of Cloud would have strategic benefits,
possibly including transforming their business models to gain a
competitive advantage
Security most important concern
Executives whose
companies use or intend to use a Cloud strategy agree that spending
will rise significantly in 2012. According to the survey, 17
percent of corporate executives said Cloud spending would exceed 20
percent of the total IT budget in 2012.
Half of the IT executives at companies where Cloud is or will be
adopted say security is the most important challenge or concern,
compared with 42 percent of the business unit executives. Among the
Cloud provider community, business unit executives (29 percent)
shared equal concerns about performance with their IT counterparts
(30 percent).
Other findings:
-
IT governance was a top challenge among 22 percent of the IT
leaders, but cited by just 17 percent of the business users;
-
Nearly a fifth (19 percent) of IT executives said loss of
control over customer data was a perceived top challenge, compared
with 14 percent of respondents among their operations
counterparts
-
Regulatory compliance was a top challenge among 16
percent of the business executives, compared with just 10 percent
of the IT leaders.
Cost savings crucial
Survey respondents agree that Cloud must offer a number of
benefits before it can gain full momentum in their organization.
For example, 75 percent of total respondents globally said they
need to show potential cost savings to justify a move into the
Cloud. More executives from Asian-Pacific countries (86 percent)
said that cost savings are key, than their counterparts in Europe,
the Middle East and Africa (72 percent) or the Americas (71
percent).
*About the Survey
KPMG's global cloud study "Clarity in the Cloud: the impact,
opportunity and risk of cloud" canvassed 806 senior executives in
15 countries from February to April 2011, in companies that use or
plan to use Cloud, as well as 123 executives from Cloud service
providers