While big enterprise has taken to cloud, smaller firms are still hesitant. Research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), shows some 78% of organisations formally adopting at least one Cloud-based service. Large private enterprises are showing the highest rates of adoption at just over 80%, whilst the sub-200 employee organisations are standing at around 75% and the public sector is still lagging at around 68%.
Web hosting, email, CRM, data back-up and disaster recovery continue to be the most pervasive Cloud services used. This is followed close behind by video conferencing, collaboration solutions, HR apps and data storage. Looking into the drivers for first time Cloud adoption, flexibility of Cloud as a delivery model continues to be cited as the primary reason for adoption among private sector companies (17%), while operational cost savings dominates the public sector (21%)
The research, conducted in June 2014, polling 250 senior IT and business decision-makers, indicated a nine-point increase or 15% growth over the last research project conducted in September 2013. This suggests an annualised growth rate of nearer 20% by the end of September 2014. Since the first research was conducted in 2010, UK Cloud adoption has grown by 61.5%.
To set context, the research also recognises that the majority of organisations (85%) operate on-premise servers or data centres. The existence of on-site technology is also a direct influence on the evolution of IT strategy based on historical investment. The co-existence of on-premise and Cloud services by nature leads to a Hybrid IT environment for the majority of organisations.
Some 78% of organisations run IT predominantly with in-house personnel and 22% use a managed service provider (MSP). MSPs have greatest penetration in the sub-20 employee organisation, where 38% claim to rely on an MSP.
Of those using Cloud services, 45% use only one Cloud service formally, 28% use two Cloud services, 13% use three and the remaining 14% use four or more; 79% of organisations now formally consider Cloud as a part of their IT strategy while 72% of organisations make new IT deployment model decisions based around infrastructure refresh.
61% of organisations reported running Windows Server 2003, which formally goes end of support in July 2015 and will drive a new wave of opportunity for Cloud services adoption over the next year.
Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF, stated: “We have now conducted five research projects over 48 months looking at Cloud adoption in the UK, and as such have a sound basis for assessment and evaluation of trends. Over the next year we can say with some confidence that first time Cloud adoption will increase by 12 points – or 15% in real terms. This means that 90% of all businesses in the UK will be formally using at least one Cloud service by the end of 2015. In the near term adopting will be driven in part by the end of support for Windows Server 2003 that concludes in July 2015.”
“We can also predict that 10% of businesses will likely report a primary Cloud-based IT strategy, 10% will remain entirely on-premise and 80% will have a Hybrid IT environment. This means that nine out of ten companies will continue to invest in on-premise IT alongside and integrated with Cloud solutions. In other words we are in fact seeing the normalisation of Cloud in the Hybrid IT market.”
For the latest on the managed services market, the Managed Services and Hosting Summit in London in September will reveal up-to-date research from Gartner and bring the big names together to talk strategies. http://www.mshsummit.com/