When and Why Are Companies Moving to the Cloud?

Nearly every business these days uses cloud computing in some form. Currently, 94% of enterprises use cloud services.

 
If we break this figure down in more detail, however, there’s a wide gulf in terms of how to define when a company is truly “in the cloud.” Using a simple cloud word processor like Google Docs, for example, is very different from migrating your mission-critical CRM and ERP applications to the cloud.

While some businesses are already fully in the cloud, others are just getting started on their move. This should be reassuring news for companies that are close to the beginning of the timeline. Many organizations are either at the same point in their cloud migration journey or were at the same point in just the last year or two.

Are you wondering what causes businesses to move to the cloud and how far along they are? You’re not alone. In this article, we’ll investigate the questions of when and why organizations perform cloud migrations.

When Do Companies Move to the Cloud?

To learn more about companies’ processes and motivations for moving to the cloud, Datavail recently conducted an informal poll of clients who haven’t yet completed a cloud migration. Most respondents said that they had not yet reached the implementation phase:

• 14 percent said that they were considering a move to the cloud but “not sure yet.”
• Another 14 percent said that they were building a business case for moving to the cloud.
• 29 percent said that they were in the cloud planning and roadmap stage.
• 43 percent said that they were implementing a cloud solution.

 
Thus, 72 percent of respondents are actively pursuing a cloud migration project. These results align with another report by IDG.

In this poll, IDG found that just 38 percent of businesses said that they were already mostly or entirely in the cloud. However, a majority of respondents—59 percent—said that they were well on their way to being in the cloud, with the move expected in the next 18 months.

Several other reports and analyses agree with these findings, indicating that many businesses will soon reach cloud maturity. For example:

• Gartner vice president Sid Nag predicts that by 2025, 85 percent of companies will have a “cloud-first” mentality.
• The number of businesses running advanced workloads in the cloud increased by 25 percent between 2020 and 2021.
• According to McKinsey, by 2024 companies expect to spend an average of 80 cents out of every $1 in their IT budget on the cloud.

Why Do Companies Move to the Cloud?

While many companies’ journey to the cloud is not yet complete, just as interesting is why they’re moving to the cloud in the first place. Datavail’s informal poll also asked clients their primary motivation for a cloud migration project:

• 29 percent are primarily interested in faster innovation and time to market.
• Another 29 percent want to have more IT capabilities and flexibility.
• 18 percent want to make their IT environment more scalable.
• Another 18 percent are principally motivated by cost savings.
• 6 percent have other reasons for their interest in the cloud.

 
With so many benefits of cloud migration, there’s no right (or wrong) answer here. Another survey by Deloitte, for example, found that 58 percent of companies said that IT security and data protection was either their most important or second most important reason for cloud migrations. “Data modernization” and “cost and performance of IT operations” were the second and third most common reasons, respectively.

Just a few benefits of moving to the cloud include:

• Lower IT costs: On-premises IT often requires large upfront capital expenditures, which can be difficult for smaller businesses. In addition, you’ll probably want to purchase more resources than you need to avoid running out during times of increased demand. The cloud, on the other hand, offers a “pay as you go” model where you’re charged only for resources that you consume.
• Greater agility: Being in the cloud gives you access to a wealth of applications and services at your fingertips, along with the ability to rapidly spin them up and down. You don’t have to wait days or weeks for a new IT installation or upgrade, as you would on-premises.
• Better data security: Many companies don’t have the in-house staff to adequately protect their sensitive data—or even the knowledge of how to keep it safe. Hosting your data in the cloud offloads this responsibility to the public cloud provider, who is much better equipped to do the job of data security. A survey by RapidScale found that 94 percent of businesses saw an improvement in security after moving to the cloud.

Conclusion

No matter where you are in your journey or your reasons for pursuing it, there’s plenty of room for more businesses in the cloud. If you haven’t done a cloud migration project before, however, it’s a good idea to work with a knowledgeable, experienced migration partner.

Datavail is an IT provider offering both IT managed services and project services, spanning the cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. We’ve helped build and operate mission-critical systems for hundreds of customers across cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Oracle. Datavail is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, a Microsoft Gold Partner and an Oracle Partner with 17 different specializations.

Looking for assistance with your cloud migration? Datavail has helped hundreds of clients move their IT environments to the cloud. Our list of cloud migration services includes:

• Performing a cloud readiness assessment and a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis.
• Creating a cloud migration roadmap and strategy.
• Application development and migration, including architecture, design and software upgrades.
• Complex cloud migrations with minimal downtime.
• Cloud data analytics, including data integration/ETL, data warehouses, reporting and dashboards.

 
To learn more about the process of migrating to the cloud, download our white paper “Your Journey to the Cloud: What You Need to Know.” You can also contact our team of cloud migration experts today for a chat about your unique business needs and objectives.