Survey Says … Cloud Adoption Booming for Global Business Leaders

In December, KPMG released the results of its annual survey on cloud computing. The survey, which collected and analyzed responses from over 500 executives in financial services, healthcare, retail and other industries worldwide, focused on increases in cloud services adoption, the catalysts driving those increases and how businesses are utilizing cloud computing in new ways. You can read the full results here.

One interesting observation is the comparison between the 2014 results and the survey results from KPMG’s previous 2012 cloud computing survey. While cost savings remains the primary motivating factor for a move to the cloud, other business considerations have become greatly more influential in the past two years. These include a desire for workforce mobility and flexibility (which grew threefold in two years), and the opportunity for improved interaction with customers and business partners.

In both surveys, data security and privacy topped the list of perceived challenges facing a company’s move to the cloud. The new study reveals, however, a dramatic decrease in the percentage of business leaders who see security as an obstacle, concluding that “even in the face of significant media attention paid to recent data breaches, global leaders are still willing to embrace the transformative potential of the cloud.” In fact, some of those breaches, like the December Sony Pictures hack, have highlighted the reality that on-prem IT models simply cannot provide the same level of security as the cloud platforms offered by industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

Blue Sentry is an advanced-tier Amazon Web Services (AWS) consulting partner specializing in application and data migrations, expert managed services and virtual desktops. Blue Sentry serves clients globally, with operations in North Carolina and South Carolina.