New data from SPR shows that many leaders are optimistic about their organization’s cloud maturity and line-of-business IT employees are less enthusiastic. SPR, a technology modernization firm, has published a report named Cloud Report: What Businesses Need for Resilience in 2021 and Beyond. The report surveyed 400 IT decision-makers and 400 line-of-business IT workers to uncover how IT teams perceive their businesses’ cloud resiliency strategy for 2020 and beyond.
How did COVID-19 affect cloud maturity?
According to the report, nearly half (47%) of IT decision-makers strongly agreed that COVID accelerated their cloud maturity compared to only 29% of line-of-business IT employees.
Kevin McMahon, Executive Director of Cloud Enablement at SPR, said,
“While many organizations are chasing a mature cloud strategy, they’re all operating under different definitions of cloud maturity. Further, internal IT teams are misaligned on what cloud maturity means for their company, and their priorities are muddled as a result. Once IT leaders and frontline employees understand how mature their cloud is, they can develop a resilient and scalable architecture that allows them to remain competitive and innovative during these uncertain times.”
Moreover, the misalignment between decision-makers and line-of-business IT employees, with 38% of decision-makers believing shadow IT is extremely common at their companies compared to only 17% of line-of-business employees. Additionally, over a quarter (27%) of decision-makers rated their cloud governance as “very mature,” compared to only 16% of line-of-business employees.
Other key findings from the report:
- Over one third (36%) of line-of-business IT employees said a company’s cloud maturity will be “extremely important” when looking for their next job.
- More than two-thirds (69%) of decision-makers are at least somewhat likely to switch or add additional cloud providers in the next 12 months, despite 63% stating they were “extremely satisfied” with how their current cloud provider supported them throughout the pandemic.
- Over a quarter (27%) of decision-makers rated their cloud governance as “very mature,” while only 16% of line-of-business employees agree. Further, 1 in 3 decision-makers think their company’s cloud security is “very mature” with only 23% of line-of-business in agreement.
- The top reason (47%) companies are accelerating their cloud initiatives right now is simply to facilitate remote work, with the top initiative accelerated being migrating on-prem IT infrastructure to the cloud.
- While 3/4 of decision-makers see shadow IT as a common problem, they’re off the mark with how to fix it according to line-of-business IT employees. A majority (55%) of decision-makers want to offer additional training on tools, but only 15% of line-of-business employees see a lack of training on how to use authorized tools as the issue. Their top issue, rather, is employees not understanding the security risks of using shadow IT.