DEVOPSdigest

Cloud adoption is a top priority for enabling innovation, becoming more agile and scaling growth, according to the 2022 Cloud Transformation Benchmark Report, commissioned by Presidio.

With inflation and the possibility of a recession, organizations have turned to cloud technology as a competitive edge and driver for operational efficiency. Companies with mature cloud adoption have demonstrated a greater ability to scale to meet demand and grow ahead of price increases, labor shortages, cybersecurity attacks and supply chain challenges. In fact, Presidio's research found that cloud-advanced organizations experienced greater efficiency (69%) and increased speed to market (68%) from cloud adoption. The report also uncovered the biggest opportunities and challenges in digital transformation, including:

Top Drivers

Maintaining compliance (53%), becoming more agile and supporting innovation (45%), and scaling and growing the company (43%) are top factors driving organizations to the Cloud. For healthcare and financial services organizations, compliance (56% and 57% respectively) and saving money (52% and 48% respectively) were the top two drivers.

Data Struggles

70% of IT leaders report difficulties with too many disparate data sources, and 65% are challenged in providing timely actionable data and dashboards to the right users.

Top Roadblocks

Security concerns (44%), skills gap (36%) and finding the right partner with the right experience (35%) are the biggest roadblocks to cloud adoption.

Influence of IT varies widely

Many (42%) say they have little to no influence on their business initiatives while 22% say they play an important role in business decisions.

Expectations vs. Reality

60% of IT decision-makers indicate experience in building cloud-native applications, but only 17% believe their team is proficient with DevOps and automation.

"Digital transformation is more than just moving applications and workloads to the Cloud – it's curated disruption in traditional thinking that drives competitive advantage," said Robert Kim, Presidio's CTO. "This report validates our viewpoint that companies who successfully adopt cloud strategies will drive increased long-term growth and be better positioned to weather the storm of geopolitical and socio-economic concerns - whether from global health issues, supply chain disruptions or dramatic fluctuations in the labor market. The key is finding the right partner to accelerate cloud initiatives to extract organizational value faster."

Skills gaps range widely with over a quarter (27%) of organizations acknowledging that they are not skilled or are just getting started in building cloud-native applications, and less than a fifth (17%) of IT decision makers say their team is currently proficient with DevOps and automation.

Additionally, only 19% say their teams are proficient with cloud operating models, and just 14% say they are proficient in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

To accomplish their goals, many organizations rely on partners that can address some of IT's biggest concerns, such as looming cybersecurity threats and advanced attacks. In fact, 95% of IT leaders value partners who understand data and access security, threat protection and recovery.

Additionally, the majority (94%) also say it's essential for partners to have experience in modern network technologies that handle different types of data both on premise and in the cloud.