Bringing the Cloud to Work

People use the cloud for business, whether you like it or not. Sales people often use Webex, GoTo Meeting, or other cloud based meeting services to connect with and sell to customers. File sharing applications like Evernote, Drop Box, and Sky Drive are used to trade business data all day, every day.The bottom line is that people have become comfortable with the cloud, and are sometimes working around corporate IT policy to enable innovation and communication in their work lives. Interestingly, employees are now driving organizations to adopt cloud computing.

According to CDW’s 2013 State of the Cloud report, “most organizations are planning to shift select capabilities there, and many already have.” 1,242 IT professionals were surveyed, with the following key findings:

  • 73% Of IT professionals say employees’ personal use of cloud apps/mobile devices has significantly influenced their organization’s decisions to adopt cloud computing.

  • 61% of cloud users agree that employee use of cloud apps/mobile devices is making their organization (Remove bullet on next line) move faster to the cloud.

  • 27% say that operating units are buying cloud services without involving IT.

  • 68% say that employees’ requests for cloud services have increased over the last two years.

Companies that use cloud services report that they reduce their IT budgets by about 13%. This expected savings is estimated to rise to 25% over the next four years.

Areas most impacted by cloud computing are:

  • Software Management Costs

  • Software Licensing Costs

  • Labor Costs

Cloud services make it easy to meter services, as well as implement a charge back approach to business units. Charging back for IT services, hardware, and software allows business units to measure and manage expenses – something that has historically been difficult.

Some of the most common applications deployed using cloud technologies are:

  • Conferencing and collaboration 31%

  • Storage 31%

  • Messaging 30%

  • Office/ productivity suites 26%

  • Business process applications 26%

  • Compute power 25%

  • Governance applications 22%

  • Hosting internally developed software externally 22%

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2013/03/05/companies-finally-listen-to-their-employees-at-least-when-it-comes-to-cloud-computing/

http://www.cdwnewsroom.com/2013-state-of-the-cloud-report/#4KkAbVeyZC0Tj0oI.99

 

Comments