Emerging group of ‘cloud masters’ accelerates the ability to outperform peers

A global survey of 730 IT professionals, conducted by Longitude, revealed that a small group of forward-thinking businesses has reached cloud maturity. On average, 70% or more of their applications operate in the cloud. Oracle and Intel partnered with Longitude Research for the study. It surveyed C-level and senior IT executives from companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more, coming from 13 countries.

Having a cloud strategy in place isn’t enough

Their research identified a small group of ‘cloud masters’. These companies are more data-driven and savvy in getting insights from their business information. They are also more innovative and better able to respond to customer needs. This results in greater relevance, speed, agility, and higher productivity, keeping them ahead of their peers.

The remainder are playing catch-up despite most having a cloud strategy in place and implementation underway. Interestingly, while more than one-third (35%) of IT executives surveyed stated that their cloud strategies are fully developed and largely implemented, less than a fifth of this group (18%) can be classified as ‘cloud masters’. This reveals a gap between what companies are talking about and what they are doing. In terms of cloud strategy, an even larger proportion (43%) reported that strategy implementation is progressing. One-fifth, however, say their strategy development for the cloud is in its infancy.

“In 2018, the gap between ‘cloud masters’ and those lagging has the potential to widen significantly. What we are seeing is that those with the most experience will be the quickest to exploit the new enterprise technologies. They will use them to wow customers or develop competitive advantages before they become mainstream. This speed to market comes from having the experience to apply emerging technologies to business and from having invested in the right cloud platform, infrastructure, and tools. This...