Two-thirds of organisations across Asia-Pacific are looking to hybrid Cloud for greater agility and security but the region’s IT teams are losing control of technology spending.
According to findings of a global EMC study, across APJ, 58 per cent of organisations report that spend on technology is moving outside of IT’s control – far higher than in the rest of the world.
Surveying 10,451 IT business decision-makers across 33 countries, the survey revealed the increasing adoption of cloud computing globally, with the majority of respondents citing hybrid cloud as their preferred option for greater agility and security.
At a global level, respondents believe IT is a business enabler now more than ever before, yet spending is moving outside of its control.
To help support business growth, the majority of respondents believe IT must act as an in-house broker of on-demand services.
This pressure, combined with a widening IT skills gap, appears to be driving interest among IT professionals in pursuing a hybrid cloud infrastructure.
“Enterprise IT continues to be under massive pressure to improve quality of service while reducing cost,” says Jeremy Burton, President, Products and Marketing, EMC Corporation.
“As a result, companies are moving toward more advanced levels of IT infrastructure driven by innovation such as hybrid cloud.
“We expect this uptake to continue in 2015 as companies look for agile, simple, and secure services.”
Challenges and drivers for adoption
While 71 per cent of respondents worldwide (and 69 per cent in APJ), favour a strategy for IT to serve as an in-house broker of on-demand services, survey data indicates a lack of confidence in IT’s own ability to help drive business growth.
Consequently, 69 per cent of respondents believe training IT staff to keep pace with the implications of mega-trends such as cloud, mobile, social and Big Data, will be a challenge for their organisation over the next 1-2 years .
EMC says this has therefore placed the spotlight on automation and innovations such as hybrid cloud and similar to global trends, APJ is also seeing the uptake in hybrid cloud technologies and automation.
Hybrid Cloud adoption has grown 9 per cent since 2013, with 27 per cent uptake across the globe, the highest being the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region (28 per cent), followed by APJ (24 per cent) and Latin America (24 per cent).
Globally speaking, 64 per cent of global respondents, and more than two-thirds in APJ (68 per cent), expressed a need for a hybrid cloud due to the agility and security it provides while 74 per cent of global respondents believe that increasing automation in their infrastructure is imperative to business growth.
Future of cloud and public scepticism
Although organisations are moving increasingly online, only a small percentage (16 per cent of respondents worldwide, and 11 per cent in APJ) would be willing to outsource any application on a public cloud.
EMC findings show the applications that most respondents would not be willing to put in the public cloud include financial planning (39 per cent), human capital management (35 per cent) and ERP (32 per cent).
Developed markets with more advanced IT economies lead the charge for cloud adoption, while emerging markets appear to be more risk averse with lower levels of cloud uptake overall.
That said, the emerging markets are, however, more positive about the IT department and hybrid cloud with 79 per centexpecting a competitive advantage from mega-trends such as cloud, mobile, social, and Big Data (vs. 75 per cent of developed countries) and 67 per cent think combining public and private cloud will improve security and agility (vs. 60 per cent of developed countries).
“This survey shows that IT decisions makers around the globe are adopting a common vision for the future of IT” adds Josh Kahn, Senior Vice President, Global Solutions, EMC Corporation.
“First, the vast majority believe technology will create a competitive advantage as more and more business moves online.
“Second, there is a conviction that IT must become an in-house provider of on-demand services to truly enable the business.
“And finally, that the best way to improve agility and security is to combine public and private clouds in IT service offerings.”