Future of Cloud Survey: Industry cloud trends

A closer look: Industry-specific benefits and challenges with industry clouds

It’s evident that most companies understand that industry clouds provide a great opportunity to accelerate their digital future. Across all industry respondents, 95% agreed or completely agreed.²

For each industry surveyed, the top anticipated benefits were remarkably consistent. First was “faster innovation/time to market” (56%), and “accelerating the capacity to change (agility)” was second (49%). That means, regardless of an organization’s industry or sector, most respondents see opportunities to benefit from an industry cloud strategy. Clearly defining what they want to achieve from digital transformation and industry clouds—and how best to proceed—are critical steps for organizations to realize their benefits. Respondents cared least about “enabling more modular solution designs” (25%), which makes sense given that architecture should not drive business decisions.

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Respondents across industries acknowledged challenges including “fear of control over data and insights” (35%); “concerns about vendor lock-in, more unified solutions with the hyperscaler” (33%); and “confidence in our ability to protect data in the cloud” (31%). The concerns related to vendor lock-in may be founded, as we are seeing organizations employ industry clouds offered by their existing cloud service provider.

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Interestingly, responses to expected challenges varied significantly more by industry. On the other hand, everyone agreed in ranking the following challenges lowest: “too few use cases to estimate value” and “doubt that industry clouds can be successful given that our industry is so specialized.” Therefore, understanding which hurdles peers face—and which ones they don’t—when implementing their own industry cloud strategies can help cloud leaders develop and implement more effective programs, minimizing common or perceived challenges identified by their peers.

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