State Of Enterprise Cloud Computing, 2018

• 77% of enterprises have at least one application or a portion of their enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud.
• Enterprises predict they’ll invest on average $3.5M on cloud apps, platforms, and services this year.
• More technology-dependent industries including manufacturing, high-tech, and telecom are being led by executive management to become 100% cloud.

These and many other fascinating insights are from the 2018 IDG Cloud Computing Study published earlier this month by IDG who has made an Executive Summary available for download here (PDF, 10 pp., opt-in). The study’s goals include measuring cloud computing trends among decision-makers including their usage and plans across the spectrum of cloud deployment, platform, and service models. The study provides an excellent contrast between the cloud purchase process for enterprises and Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs). The methodology is based on 550 respondents recruited from IDG publications including CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World tech buyer audiences. 75% of respondents have an executive IT title, and the average company size is 12,297 employees. Please see page 2 of the study for additional details.

Key takeaways from the study include the following:

• 77% of enterprises have at least one application or a portion of their enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud. 73% of all organizations have at least one application or a portion of their infrastructure in the cloud. 15% of enterprises intend to adopt cloud apps and platforms in the next twelve months. The graphic below shows why cloud platforms are essential for enterprises pursuing digital business models that drive revenue growth.

• Enterprises predict they’ll invest on average $3.5M on cloud apps, platforms, and services this year. 30% of all IT budgets are allocated to cloud computing this year, with the majority being SaaS (48%), IaaS (30%) and PaaS (21%). The average investment is soaring in cloud computing apps and platforms, with the average reaching $2.2M this year, up from $1.62M in 2016.

• 76% of enterprises are looking to cloud apps and platforms to accelerate IT service delivery. For years cloud was seen as a cost reduction strategy first, now it’s become a digital business model enabler. The expectations and pressure on IT departments to deliver cloud apps and platform components fast have never been higher. Cloud investments are being made to bring greater flexibility to enterprises and their ability to react to changing market conditions (65% for enterprises, and 63% across all organizations interviewed) further enabling digital business models.

• Manufacturing, High-Tech and Telecommunications/Utilities are the three industries experiencing the greatest pressure from executive management to become 100% cloud-based. Simplifying complex manufacturing with an overarching cloud platform that can provide a single, unified system of record from the shop floor to the top floor is now a high priority for executive management in these three tech-driven industries. Enabling greater supplier quality management, visibility, better manufacturing scheduling, workflow optimization, fulfillment and customer deliveries are just a few of the areas where cloud platforms are contributing to manufacturing’s growth.

• 95% of all organizations will be relying on the SaaS model for application delivery in 18 months, with IaaS increasing to 83% and PaaS, 73%. Cloud platforms and apps already dominate organizations' technology stacks, and the momentum will continue through 2020. This completely changes the level of communication and collaboration within enterprises and underscores how critical it is to recruit and retain the best cloud talent possible.

• 54% of enterprises say that IT must increase its collaboration with other business units as a result of cloud investments. 48% of all organizations are saying the cloud is forcing them to rethink their IT organizational structure. Additional changes include retaining and repositioning current IT staff, hiring for more cloud-centric skills and talent, and getting involved in new vendor selection and management.

• Data analytics and disaster recovery are the two application areas with the greatest opportunity of moving to the cloud. 49% of all organizations are planning to migrate disaster recovery/high availability to the cloud between 12 months to three years from now. 45% of organizations are planning to migrate their BI, data warehouse and data analytics applications to the cloud in the next 12 months to three years. The cloud is now being relied on as a growth catalyst where the apps it enables are removing barriers to growing revenues and gaining new customers while stabilizing operations.