Executive summary
Technology has gained critical mass in enterprises in several ways. Historically the IT department, with clear orders and budget from the CIO, would buy, deploy and strictly control any technology used by employees.
Then the “Consumerization of IT” brought consumer technologies into the workplace that were cheaper, more mobile and easier to manage, and the era of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) began.
Now we see a third pattern of technology adoption in the enterprise, this time driven by C-level executives.
These executives, who are outside of IT, manage up to 37 percent of technology budgets and they aren’t concerned with controlling technology use or managing their own personal technologies. They are, however, focused on championing select new technologies, which they believe offer a competitive advantage and help their organization focus on issues that are core to growing the business and improving the customer experience.
Our research shows hybrid cloud falls squarely in this last adoption pattern. Indeed, new data shows C-suite optimism is propelling hybrid cloud adoption toward a tipping point in the next three years.
Avanade’s “Hybrid Cloud: From Hype to Reality,” a global study of 1,000 C-level executives, business unit leaders and IT decision-makers, shows that businesses of all sizes, in all geographies, claim interest in adoption of hybrid cloud.
However, there is much confusion about the potential that hybrid cloud solutions offer, and the approach needed to make this aspiration a reality. Despite the confusion, companies are overwhelmingly optimistic about the promise of hybrid cloud and its strategic value to the business, with 69 percent of respondents believing that it should be one of the biggest areas of focus for their company in 2015.
Key findings from the research include:
• Companies the world over expect that a majority of their applications and services will be deployed in a hybrid cloud environment within three years.
• Within that same timeframe, an overwhelming majority of companies indicate that they would move some of their most critical business applications – data and analytics, office applications and customer-facing services – to a hybrid cloud solution.
But that doesn’t mean the road to get there will be easy. Companies will need to confront a number of barriers to adoption, including security and privacy concerns as well as costs and skills needed to implement. Most importantly, companies will need to shift away from using cloud solutions reactively, and instead develop a strategy that enables them to tap into the speed, scale and efficiency that cloud can offer.
