Overall cloud adoption in the UK now stands at 88%, with 67% of users expecting to increase their adoption of cloud services over the coming year. However, CIF conducted a detailed analysis comparing perceptions of cloud adoption and Digital Transformation projects between IT decision makers (ITDM) and their counterparts within business (BDM).
While 73% of ITDMs believe that cloud is being driven by their department as a technology strategy, only 48% of business leaders believe this to be the case. In contrast, almost half (49%) of BDMs say that it is driven by the business considering Digital Transformation, compared to only 26% of ITDMs.
Alex Hilton CEO, CIF, stated: “We were keen to analyse the views of both the IT and business decision makers within the enterprise to see if there are competing perceptions on who owns and drives Digital Transformation projects. The results did not disappoint. There appears to be a glaring disconnect between the IT department and others in the ‘C’ suite. One key statistic stands out: IT decision makers are more likely to think the head of IT/CIO is driving the migration to the cloud and implementing Digital Transformation projects by 47% to 26% of BDMs. Whereas the BDMs themselves are more likely to say it is driven by the CEO – 37% against 27% of ITDMs.”
Conducted in February 2017, the research, polled 250 IT and business decision-makers in large enterprises, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and public sector organisations.
Alex Hilton added: “An organisation can purchase, deploy and manage IT and cloud successfully without detailed understanding of its future direction but without business strategy in the right format and at the right level of detail, there is a risk that the organisation may shape and steer its technology in such a way as to prevent future alignment.
“Aligning IT with business strategy is nothing new. Organisations, which have struggled to use IT to achieve business objectives, are often due to differences in departmental goals and culture, or a mutual ignorance of each other's methods resulting in ineffectual products and systems, which fail to provide an effective return on investment. These findings are critical therefore to our understanding of the institutional and organisational challenges confronted by many in both the IT department and the wider business. Perceptions and expectations are widely different and those enterprises looking to deliver Digital Transformation projects effectively need address this disconnect head on,” concluded Alex.