Study: Cloud Services No Longer Guarantee Success
A few years ago when cloud services were the hot new technology on the block, simply having a cloud deployment for your business was a guaranteed way to gain the upper hand against the competition. But, like with all new technologies, cloud has filtered down into the hands of nearly every organization, meaning it’s no longer good enough to simply utilize cloud services. For businesses who want to truly make a name for themselves in our new cloud-centric world, creativity and quality of served are the only ways to truly stand out from the crowd.
A few years ago when cloud services were the hot new technology on the block, simply having a cloud deployment for your business was a guaranteed way to gain the upper hand against the competition. But, like with all new technologies, cloud has filtered down into the hands of nearly every organization, meaning it’s no longer good enough to simply utilize cloud services. For businesses who want to truly make a name for themselves in our new cloud-centric world, creativity and quality of served are the only ways to truly stand out from the crowd.
The struggle to remain at the top of the heap for companies utilizing cloud services is the focus of a new report called “Cloud: Driving a Faster, More Connected Business” from Verizon Enterprise Solutions and Harvard Business Review. The report surveyed 452 business and IT executives globally to determine how the implementation of cloud services has gone from revolutionary to ordinary among IT companies.
Now that nearly everyone has access to cloud services, the needs and requirements for cloud have matured to the point where companies wish to get more out of their deployments than the basic functionality they were happy with several years ago. In fact, cloud has become so prevalent that companies without cloud services of any kind are at a severe market disadvantage, according to the study. About 84 percent of respondents said their organization’s use of cloud has increased in the past year, with cloud usage largely moving beyond sales force automation and into core business systems like supply chain management.
“Advantage in the future will come from how well organizations adapt to the new, much faster, and more collaborative way of doing business that cloud makes possible,” said the Harvard Business Review. “Success will depend on how well organizations manage not only their use of cloud but also the changes required in skills, processes, business models, and relationships—both inside and outside the traditional walls of the enterprise.”
Cloud usage has also matured to the point where business units are increasingly working with IT to better integrate projects with existing business processes, according to the study. This, in turn, is lessening the amount of siloed cloud projects and making cloud services more of a company-wide effort. In fact, 62 percent of respondents said their company is now able to exchange data between multiple cloud services and internal systems as a result of this increased collaboration.
Increased speed of services is generally accepted as the top reason for switching to a cloud service model, according to the study. While there are little cost savings to be had simply by implementing a cloud model, a decrease in the time needed to identify the need for a new capability and delivering said capability have proven to be the most advantageous aspects of cloud services.
Specific security practices are still the top priority when it comes to choosing which cloud services to implement, according to the report. Cloud services are no safer than any other model, so the level of security ultimately comes down to the policies implemented by each specific cloud service provider. About 80 percent of respondents said involving central IT in their cloud service management helps to increase cloud security and reliability.
For companies looking to get ahead of the competition, the real lesson here is to experiment with how you use your cloud services and think differently in terms of how you can augment your business. Remember that the only risk that isn’t worth taking is to play it safe, so get out there and don’t be afraid to fail when it comes to the cloud.
I agree that “Specific
I agree that “Specific security practices are still the top priority when it comes to choosing which cloud services to implement,” and that “Cloud services are no safer than any other model.”
Gartner released the report “Simplify Operations and Compliance in the Cloud by Protecting Sensitive Data” in June 2015 that highlighted key challenges as “cloud increases the risks of noncompliance through unapproved access and data breach.” The report recommended CIOs and CISOs to address data residency and compliance issues by “applying encryption or tokenization,” and to also “understand when data appears in clear text, where keys are made available and stored, and who has access to the keys.”
Another recent Gartner report concluded that “Cloud Data Protection Gateways” provides a “High Benefit Rating” and “offer a way to secure sensitive enterprise data and files stored in Cloud SaaS applications”.
Ulf Mattsson, CTO Protegrity
The time when cloud was
The time when cloud was something new and exciting are long gone. It is, however, the time when the concept is maturing and various takes on it emerge. I work for a company called Sher.ly and we have just realeased a cloud storage solution that provides a very high degree of data security – we feel it was the area that needed improvement the most. You can check it out at sher.ly.