How Companies are Adopting the Cloud in 2018

23.08.2018 1,778 12

Martin Deshev

A lot has been said about cloud technologies and services. They are the technological advancement that can change the world as we know it. But have they?

The 2018 Cloud Computing Survey by IDG sheds some light on this question.

On the whole, the results are positive. Things seem to be going well for the cloud world. Budgets are going up, the usage is also up. So, how are companies adopting the cloud in 2018?

First, a couple of words about the actual survey. It had 550 respondents with an average company size of 12, 297 employees. Most of the respondents were from High Tech, Financial Services, Manufacturing and Government/Non-profit sectors. From them, the vast majority were at Executive IT positions and all respondents have or are using at least one cloud service or application.

The Gist

The survey shows that the average cloud budget is up from $1.62 million in 2016 to $2.2 million today. On average, enterprises invest about $3.5 million a year, while SMBs spend about $889,000. This is quite higher, compared to 2016 when SMBs spent about $286,000 on cloud technology.

73% of respondents use at least one cloud application, or a portion of their IT infrastructure is kept on the cloud. 17% plan to do the same within 12 months.

Interestingly, companies aren’t using only one cloud model. In fact, they prefer the multi-cloud alternative and see it as a way to get more options and faster disaster recovery. Still, 53% of the environment is non-cloud. This will drop to only 31% within 18 months, IDG predicts. The average environment is also 23% SaaS, 16% IaaS and 9% PaaS.

Why do Companies Choose the Cloud?

71% say it’s to improve the speed of their IT service delivery. 63% also point out the ability to react better to the changing market. 58% add the business continuity and 57% also say they improve their customer support and services. Among the other reasons are lower costs, reducing resource waste and faster RoI.

As a result, 38% of IT departments in enterprises say they feel pressured to migrate 100% to the cloud. That comes not only from the executive management, but also from individual lines of business.

What Does all of This Mean?

The study shows that companies continue to be interested in the cloud and find more and more new opportunities using the technology. As a result, they become more open to invest, while also exploring additional models, features and services.

SMBs also start to see the value in the cloud and are willing to spend more to gain competitive advantage and lower their long-term costs. They are starting to find different ways to use the cloud to evolve and develop their business better and faster.

A big benefit for all companies is that there are so many cloud services and models. Most of the platforms are open and allow their clients to mix and match solutions to get exactly what they need. As a result, the interest in the cloud will continue to rise, but at a steady pace. Don’t expect a sudden boom. Instead, things will continue at a steady, confident pace as the cloud develops and organizations continue to find new benefits for their use cases.