85% of enterprises say cloud has lived up to the hype

Research conducted by Tata Communications has found that organisations with 500+ employees are seeing tangible benefits from cloud computing. 85% say cloud had lived up to industry hype, with 23% declaring that cloud had exceeded their expectations.

According to the global survey, this groundswell of positive opinion has been contributed to by enterprises experiencing tangible benefits when using cloud services – with 83% of enterprises feeling they have experienced benefits they did not expect to see. The most popular of these benefits cited by respondents were: increased productivity (69%), better access to data (65%), and reductions in costs (63%).

The findings also showed that by 2024 off-premises storage will have overtaken on-premises alternatives, with enterprises forecast on average to have 58% of their compute and data storage held in the cloud in ten years’ time compared with 28% currently. When asked how much of their IT provision would be stored in private cloud specifically by 2024, respondents predicted an average of 52% - highlighting the dominance of private cloud storage. However, 94% of respondents say they would be more likely to adopt a hybrid cloud computing model if connections with the public cloud were more predictable.

Furthermore, the research suggests that enterprises are realizing competitive advantages from cloud deployments. Nearly two thirds (65%) of respondents said using the cloud had led to increased speed of access to technology. In terms of streamlining business processes, over two thirds (67%) have experienced reduced delivery times to clients and partners. 54% have seen the delivery time of new services to new markets and / or geographies reduced.

Julie Woods-Moss, CMO and CEO of NextGen Business at Tata Communications, says “This independent research shows that the cloud has exited the hype cycle and entered the real adoption phase for businesses globally. It is now a strategic investment and a competitive differentiator. As a result, the network that enables cloud adoption is critical, and new services, such as our IZO™ network platform and partner ecosystem, are fundamental to creating a simple way for companies to adopt the cloud model most suited to business requirements – be that private, public or hybrid.”

Today, over 24% of the world’s internet routes travel over Tata Communications’ network, which is the largest wholly-owned subsea cable network in the world. Its Tier 1 IP network provides backbone connectivity to over 240 countries and territories across 400 points-of-presence, as well as nearly 1 million square feet of data centre and collocation space worldwide.