‘Few’ maximising value from cloud says Cisco

While cloud adoption continues to accelerate, “few” organisations are maximising the value that cloud can offer, according to research commissioned by Cisco.

According to the global study, nearly 68 percent of organisations are using cloud to help drive business outcomes, a 61 percent increase from last year’s study. The increased cloud adoption is being fuelled by security and Internet of Things (IoT) cloud-based solutions, among others.

However, most organisations (69 percent) do not have mature cloud strategies and only 3 percent have optimised cloud strategies to generate “superior business outcomes”.

On average, the most “cloud advanced” organisations see an annual benefit per cloud-based application of $3 million in additional revenues and $1 million in cost savings. These revenue increases have been largely the result of sales of new products and services, gaining new customers faster, or accelerated ability to sell into new markets.

The study also reveals that 95 percent of those leading organisations with optimised cloud strategies have built a hybrid IT environment that uses multiple private and public clouds based on economics, location and governance policies.

The Cisco-sponsored InfoBrief “Cloud Going Mainstream: All Are Trying, Some Are Benefiting, Few Are Maximing Value” was developed by analyst IDC. The study is based on market research conducted with executives responsible for IT decisions in over 6,100 organisations across 31 countries, that are successfully implementing private, public and hybrid clouds in their IT environments.

This marks the second year of the study, and the sample this year has nearly doubled. In the study, IDC identifies five levels of cloud maturity: ad hoc, opportunistic, repeatable, managed and optimised.

Hybrid Cloud Adoption by Country

Hybrid cloud adoption (public cloud and private cloud services) varies by country, with South Korea and Japan among the countries with the greatest percentage of organisations using a mix of public cloud services and dedicated assets.

The study notes the percentage of organisations with hybrid cloud adoption in the following countries:

45 percent United States
47 percent Latin America Region
46 percent UK
42 percent France
51 percent Germany
41 percent Australia
47 percent Canada
55 percent Korea
42 percent The Netherlands
54 percent Japan
52 percent China

Robert Mahowald, an analyst at IDC, said: “As this global cloud adoption study reveals, most organisations are still attempting to optimise their cloud strategies, but the 3 percent of organisations that have reached the highest level of adoption are reaping the most benefits.

“It also underscores that multi-cloud environments are the default scenario among a majority of companies worldwide, and successfully managing multi-cloud is a key attribute of mature cloud strategies.”

Cisco has launched a suite of cloud professional services and tools as part of the published research.

@AntonySavvas