Cloud Adoption Is All About Value for CIOs

Many organizations in the early stages of their cloud computing forays are reporting it’s so far, so good. Their CIOs seem to agree.

No major flaws have emerged in recent cloud engagements, and CIOs are giving their full support to the cloud, according to a recent study from Navint Partners, which finds large companies experiencing mainly positive results from cloud-computing efforts.

Navint recently headed up a roundtable with 20 CIOs from Fortune 500 companies to discuss the pros and cons of cloud computing.

Nine out of 10 respondents, for example, say they have received 100 percent of the savings they expected from their cloud computing projects. In addition, four out of five say their cloud efforts have helped their organizations achieve some sort of competitive advantage, and two-thirds say cloud has helped their organization’s efficiency and effectiveness.

“Businesses are embracing the cloud and realizing it offers tremendous value and advantages over on-premise applications. This new research reinforces the industry’s shift to a more modern, effective and safe way of doing business,” said Keri Brooke, vice president of marketing at Host Analytics.

Research from Host Analytics and conducted by Dimensional Research found that for four out of five business execs, the cloud is chosen for its value over any other factor, according to an article on CloudComputingNews.net.

A similar number of employees surveyed said that it’s beneficial for them to use cloud applications.

The research talked to more than 300 CIOs and business executives and found various benefits to cloud adoption, which may perhaps shift the balance as IT budgets are being prepared for 2013.

When asked for the reasons a cloud app was chosen over other, on-premise options, the disparity between business executives and CIOs was stark.

Value was the obvious factor for execs (80 percent), whereas compliance was the most important component for CIOs (58 percent); value (53 percent) and greater competitive advantage (51 percent) completed the top three.

Compliance is a vital and underrated reason for utilizing the cloud. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents said they have out-of-date, business-critical software, and 14 percent said their on-premise software hadn’t been upgraded in four or more years.

More than one in three CIOs stated that while their company didn’t have plans for any solution, the cloud seemed a better fit.

More money will be going into private cloud efforts than public cloud resources over the next two years — which comes as little surprise, given the huge internal IT inventories within Fortune 500 companies. Close to half of the CIOs contributing to the Navint report expect to boost their private cloud budgets by more than 20 percent, and about a third will be increasing spending on public cloud services.

Patrick Burke is a writer and editor based in the greater New York area and occasionally blogs for Rackspace Hosting.