In a new report “Flipping to Digital Leadership: The 2015 CIO Agenda,” Analysts at Gartner have suggested that CIOs should take a “Cloud-first” approach to new projects.
The report is based on the findings from a survey of over 2,800 CIOs, representing approximately $397 billion in IT spending across 84 countries.
According to the report, 9 percent of respondents are not even considering cloud computing for software-as-a-service (SaaS) projects, and only 15 percent of respondents are considering cloud computing for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) projects.
“The Survey results show that, for most CIOs, public cloud is an option for projects, but only a first consideration for a small minority,” said Gartner Vice President and analyst Dave Russell.
Russell also said that infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders have been protective of their existing infrastructures and have, in many cases, been the biggest obstacle to cloud-based solutions.
Gartner’s analysts have found that CIOs must pivot from a “legacy first” standpoint to a “digital first” focus in order to make the best use of available resources.
“I&O leaders should institute a ‘cloud first’ consideration for every project on an application-to-application basis,” said Russell.
Cloud, mobile, social, and information–what Gartner calls “The Nexus of Forces”– are now “table stakes for digital businesses,” according to the report, and CIOs must make a shift from old to new to help their business keep up.
Other research shows that while cloud adoption is growing at a steady rate, use among CIOs is lagging. In a survey conducted during September and October 2014, consisting of over 1000 interviews with IT decision makers in organizations of 500 employees or more, Tata Communications found that 97 percent of organizations have adopted the cloud to some extent, yet on average only 28 percent of the compute and data storage of each organization was in the cloud. That number is predicted to rise to 43 percent within five years.
Similarly, in a survey of 930 technical professionals, Right Scale found that 68 percent of enterprises run less than a fifth of their application portfolio in the cloud.
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Jeff Edwards
Jeff Edwards is an enterprise technology writer and analyst covering Identity Management, SIEM, Endpoint Protection, and Cybersecurity writ large. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and previously worked as a reporter covering Boston City Hall.
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