UK CIOs Believe CAPEX Is Slowing Down Cloud Adoption
How to pay for cloud is still seen a potential barrier to its adoption, says Trustmarque
More than half of UK CIOs (55 percent) believe that outdated Capital Expenditure (CAPEX ) budgeting models have made it more difficult, or slowed the speed at which they can adopt cloud services, according to research released today by Trustmarque Solutions Limited.
Further, almost three quarters (72 percent) of CIOs said the various ways an organisation can pay for cloud makes selecting the right solution complicated. While this is a marginal improvement from when the same question was asked in 2016 – where 76 percent of CIOs admitted confusion over payment models leads to difficulty in choosing cloud services – the research shows that how to pay for cloud is still seen a potential barrier to its adoption.
The complexity and the lack of flexibility of existing software licences is also a concern for many CIOs. This research found that 87 percent of CIOs believe existing software licensing agreements will delay them moving certain services to the cloud – which is more than 2016, when this figure was 80 percent. In addition, 59 percent of CIOs state the inflexibility of fixed-term and fixed user/usage on-premise licensing agreements is hindering the speed at which they have been able to move applications to the cloud.
Value for money
“Cloud is now accepted as an essential part of every IT strategy, but in an era of constrained IT budgets – in both the public and private sectors – value for money is top of the CIOs agenda. Therefore, selecting the right payment model and understanding how to budget for cloud is critical,” said James Butler, CTO at Trustmarque.
“Despite this, it is apparent there is widespread confusion over how to pay for cloud, which is hampering the speed at which organisations can adopt cloud solutions. The ‘on-demand’ nature of cloud, means unmanaged cloud can play havoc with long-term financial plans. CIOs must ensure they retain full visibility and control over their IT estate, across SaaS, IaaS and traditionally licensed solutions, to minimise the unplanned spend that poorly managed cloud infrastructure and services can result in.”
Elsewhere, the research revealed that more than three quarters of CIOs (77 percent) are finding it difficult to establish which cloud services are suitable for their organisation, and to implement them. The research also found mixed views among CIOs on whether cloud delivers the promised benefits; half (50 percent) of CIOs believe cloud is only partly delivering on the promised benefits, and just under a fifth (16 percent) think cloud ‘barely’ delivers, or does not deliver ‘at all’.