Clouding the issue

We recently surveyed CIMA finance leaders from more than 6,000 mid market companies to gain a better understanding of their IT investment, what areas they are most concerned with, and what new technologies they believe will take their business to the next level.

Three key themes emerged around cloud, infrastructure & investment and hybrid IT.

On cloud, despite the recent developments around cloud computing, a large number of business leaders have yet to fully understand and plan for the opportunities that cloud represents with 42% of respondents saying they didn’t have a clear cloud strategy.

However, the survey revealed that companies are still open to using Cloud, as less than 20% of respondents said that they’ve completely discounted it and 35% of respondents thought that it would make them more competitive. It seems to be on their agenda but they didn’t have a strategy around it yet.

So while 66% of respondents are investing in new innovative technology they don’t appear to have a clear strategy around it.

“Clearly, people are open to new technologies but with 42% of respondents saying they didn’t understand enough about cloud to comment, the knowledge gap around it and other new developments is notable.”

Lee Ganly, CTO at Acora

Companies are also ramping up their investment plans around established IT products and services. Prime among them are mobile technology – smartphones, tablets etc. Security software comes next.

But as a central pillar of a progressive, flexible and robust security strategy, the absence of cloud among many IT managers’ top priorities points up the need for businesses to change the way they work with third party providers.

“They can’t assume that handing over responsibility for their cloud system means that they can relinquish their security responsibilities. They need to have strict governance in place. They can outsource the process, but not the risk.”

Lee Ganly, CTO at Acora

There’s no doubt we are at the beginning of the evolution of the cloud – there is a lot more to come. And while it’s tempting to nail down every last aspect of your cloud policy, leaving some room for manoeuvre to adopt new services as and when they come online will go a long way to future-proofing your business.