The cloud has revolutionised how many businesses work, but exactly how is it being utilised within modern enterprises? Contino decided to find out, by surveying 250 decision-making IT professionals within companies of over 5000 employees in Europe, USA and APAC.
Those who participated in the survey ranged from managers, directors, engineers and C-levels. Contino wanted to show that their findings show why the public cloud is the largest enabler within a generation and highlight where businesses need to focus to get their cloud programs to their optimum level.
Spending in IT has decreased by 8% in 2020 and with uncertain economic times ahead this could drop even more. However, investment in the cloud continues to grow, revealing the importance of it within enterprises.
We look into the key findings below.
Contents
Geography Is Irrelevant
When first analysing answers from respondents, the survey showed very little correlation between answers and location of enterprises. When it came to the type of industry, this is where correlations were much higher.
The Public Cloud is Being Used By Most Enterprises
77% of respondents declared they are using the public cloud in some form. 50% of those in the survey have chosen to use a hybrid cloud, single private cloud is being used by 22% and 20% are using multi-cloud.
Single public cloud is being utilised by just 7% of businesses and a meagre 1% have chosen to remain on-premises.
Using The Cloud Business-Wide Is Rare
The survey revealed that 13% of enterprises have implemented a fully-fledged public cloud system. 42% of IT professionals deploy multiple applications/projects within the loud and just under one quarter are still trying to implement initial proof of concepts.
There were also respondents who stated they are still in the planning stages (18%).
Compliance And Security Are Seen As The Biggest Barriers
Almost half of the respondents (48%) declared their biggest concern was security and was cited as the biggest barrier for not adopting the cloud.
The requirement of remaining compliant was worries over the public cloud blocking this was declared as the second largest barrier at 37%.
These were not the only concerns that respondents stated, a lack of skills, costs and cloud-native systems not operating with current investments made up 29-32% of answers.
Another barrier was leadership buy-in lacking within the business (19%). This shows that many IT professionals are wanting to make the switch to the public cloud but are not being provided with support to do so.
There Are Concerns Of Vendor Lock-In
63% of those within the survey have concerns over the commitment with cloud vendors, presenting another barrier for making the investment.
Just under one quarter (23%) revealed they are not afraid of the potential vendor lock-in and a tiny 5% presented no fear at all.
Despite these concerns, the fact that 77% of businesses have made the investment shows that the risks of vendor lock-in are being cast aside and any lock-in cons are outweighed by the benefits of switching to the public cloud.
Security Is Seen As Higher With The Cloud
Even though many respondents stated worries over security with the public cloud, those who are using it stated that it is largely seen as higher in security than on-premises.
64% said they believe the public cloud is more secure and just 7% stated that they believe it is less secure than on-premises.
Using the public cloud was easier in regards to compliance for 72% of those within the survey when handling business data and just 4% said they found this harder.
The Top Technical Benefits
99% of these IT professionals witnessed significant benefits within the technical elements of the public cloud compared to on-premises, the most cited were scalability, agility and efficiency.
Only 1% said they haven’t witnessed any technical benefits.
The Most Cited Benefit With The Public Cloud
All respondents (100%) stated that they saw business benefits when using the public cloud compared to using on-premises. 43% said they were able to focus on new revenues and a faster time-to-market, 40% also reported an increased ROI.
Accelerations With Cloud Usage
81% of answers showed that innovating was faster when using the cloud and no one stated that the cloud slowed down innovation.
Money was saved by 79% of those using the cloud and just 5% believed it was more expensive than on-premises.
The Expansion Of Cloud Usage
Most respondents declared they are looking to expand their cloud programs (83%), however, 48% of these respondents want to proceed with caution and another 36% want to move as quickly as possible.
4% are planning on going back to on-premises, but are in no rush to do so.
The majority of businesses are now using the public cloud in some capacity. The biggest barriers, security and compliance, are also cited as some of the best benefits and few struggle with these issues when using the cloud, perhaps showing that those who have not implemented the public cloud due to these concerns actually have very little to be concerned about.
