Cloud insights to harness technology’s full potential
Methodology
What sets apart organizations that successfully leverage cloud?
To find out, Deloitte recently surveyed cloud decision-makers across multiple industries about their experience with cloud and how cloud strategy and maturity affect business performance and innovation.
The study looks at how cloud investment relates to strategic enterprise outcomes and innovation goals. We surveyed 500 senior cloud decision-makers in the United States across a wide range of industries. Participants were asked about their companies' current cloud maturity and self-reported on how they view the future of cloud.
The goal was to gain insights into how cloud maturity relates to business performance and innovation and how organizations can best use cloud technology investments as a “force multiplier” for their digital strategy and overall business performance.
Self-reported survey data can be subject to self-reporting bias. As a result, findings may be overstated but are directionally correct. Findings are expected to be within approximately +/- 4.5% of the total population value 95 out of 100 times, if this survey were replicated.*
Respondent organizations were segmented based on the extent to which they view enterprise outcomes as strategic priorities and the extent to which they reported a high level of success at driving innovation in these areas.
Organizations that widely view these outcomes as strategically important and have achieved high levels of innovation in their top-priority areas are classified as Leaders, whereas Hopefuls are organizations that view these outcomes as strategically important but have not been successful at driving innovation in their priority areas. In between are Drivers and Moderates, with rankings determined by their level of success at driving innovation in outcome areas they consider strategically important. Learn more about the innovation index segments here.
Innovation gap
How strategy, technology, and innovation can diverge
Cloud drives positive change, but innovation gaps remain
Organizations’ innovation capabilities are not aligned with their strategic priorities
On average, there is a 14.5 percentage point gap between organizations’ strategic priorities and their successful innovation in those areas.
Cloud is a ‘force multiplier’ and digital strategy cornerstone
Cloud investments can add significant value to other technology strategies, business goals, and innovation priorities
90% of respondents agree or completely agree that cloud combined with other technologies (AI, IoT, and analytics) serve as “force multipliers” for their digital strategy.
74
74
86
79
83
75
47
68
Cloud investments
Scaling cloud to drive business value
Investments, migration, and the benefits of multi-cloud
Investment in cloud is sizeable and will continue to grow
Most organizations plan to invest in cloud over the next one to two years
54% of respondents expect a 6%–19% increase in cloud investment, and 32% expect a 20% increase or more.
How much do you invest across all enterprises in cloud solutions in a year?
Utilizing cloud now, and in the future
90% of organizations have been utilizing cloud solutions for three years or more
Workloads are moving to cloud. Respondents say 25% of their workloads are currently on-prem. In three years, however, they expect that number to decrease to 15%.
What percentage of your workloads are you currently running on cloud versus traditional and on-prem solutions, and how do you expect this to change in three years?
60
23
Percentage of workloads in the cloud
A multi-cloud approach means more choice and better scalability
Most respondents currently benefit from a multi-cloud approach
85% of respondents say access to more choice in cloud services is the most important benefit.
79
31
29
Strategic themes
Cloud trends and strategies for innovation
What to know about cloud native, industry clouds, and cloud cyber
The customer domain is a top priority for cloud native solutions
Cloud native services are increasingly important for customer-facing processes
50% of respondents say the customer domain is a top priority for cloud native.
Industry clouds are viewed as a catalyst, but uncertainty remains
Industry clouds provide opportunity, but concerns remain. The top two benefits are faster innovation (56%) and agility (49%); whereas the top two concerns are control over data and insights (35%) and vendor lock-in (33%).
95% of respondents agree or completely agree that industry clouds will be an enabler or catalyst for transformation.
Benefits
Concerns
Cloud cybersecurity offers ample opportunity
Cloud cybersecurity is pervasive, with 82% of cloud decision-makers stating their organization is using cloud cyber services
64% of respondents want to improve their ability to detect and address security risks/threats.
Addressing regulatory compliance requirements more efficiently (through built-in data governance processes)
Adopting Zero Trust methods (Zero Trust is a model and framework that applies a ‘never trust, always verify’ policy with regards to users, workloads, networks and devices before granting access to an organization’s IT ecosystem and underlying data)
Future of cloud
What does the future of cloud look like?
Positive emotions dominate, but uncertainty remains
Looking ahead to the future of cloud
While sentiment share is largely skewed toward positive emotions, leading negative feelings include uncertainty, overwhelmed, and stress. A cloud strategy aligning strategic priorities and innovation goals may help alleviate these negative emotions.
Emotional sentiment among organizations was very positive (86%) with confidence, enthusiasm, and excitement as the top three emotions; uncertainty, overwhelmed, and stress were the top negative emotions.
Learn from leaders to reduce uncertainty and gain the most value from your cloud investments.
Notes
- Data filters should be considered for directional purposes only with the following kept in mind. More than 40% of survey respondents had final responsibility for the success or failure of their organization (e.g., CEO or owner) and may have been more likely to report higher levels of IT implementation and strategy success and/or been influenced by some degree of self-serving bias, given they are the “person ultimately liable for the organization’s success/perceived success.” While successful organizations could also have been more likely to have CEOs, owners, and other C-suite members report on behalf of their organizations, the literature suggests that the former explanation is more likely, and therefore any data filtered by CEO/owner/C-suite status, are likely somewhat overstated. Over 50% of surveyed organizations had more than 20,000 employees and reported being far less successful. Large organizations are likely to be older, with more system dependencies than smaller, younger organizations, and therefore, some findings may be overstated, but still directionally correct. Similarly, approximately 50% of respondents had a business responsibility and 50% had an IT function within their organization (e.g., cybersecurity, IT architecture and design, systems/software engineering, & other IT) with one-third of these having an explicitly cybersecurity function. Their vested interest should also be considered with any filtered data.