The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its new study, sponsored by Google, Trust in cloud technology and business performance: Reaping benefits from the cloud (PDF link) found that enterprises that trust cloud computing apps and platforms to transform their businesses beyond cost cutting see revenue growth.
In addition, fostering and supporting business transformations that leverage cloud computing’s strengths is how high-trust enterprises are gaining greater revenue outcomes than competitors.
The study seeks to make a distinction that higher trust in cloud computing alone will not lead to better financial results, and “put simply, higher cloud trust appears to facilitate behavioural and process change within an organisation,” according to the study’s results.
The key findings of the study were:
- Cloud-based technology already makes up a sizeable portion of corporate and government IT systems, with 38% of enterprise IT currently based on this technology; this figure will likely grow to 45% by 2019.
- Trust in cloud technology, however, while also growing, remains muted, with only 16% of survey respondents indicating very high trust in the cloud.
- This disconnect has important implications. Respondents who say their organisation has higher trust in the cloud also report much better outcomes on both non-financial and financial success metrics—including revenue, profit and share price growth— than do their peers who indicate lower trust. For example, those with very high trust in cloud technology overall cite a 9.1% profit rise versus 1% by the low-trust group.
- In contrast, cloud use alone, independent of trust, does not appear to produce these benefits to nearly the same extent; in some cases, survey data reveal no statistically significant connection between usage and better outcomes.
- The relationship between trust in cloud technology and positive business outcomes at high-trust organisations appears to be linked to their willingness to foster business transformations that leverage what the cloud offers. Put simply, higher cloud trust appears to facilitate behavioral and process change within an organisation.
- Successfully developing trust appears to build on the active leadership of senior executives; supporting employees and functions to do their jobs through the cloud; and encouraging them to experiment with cloud use to change how an organisation operates in ways large and small.
Click here to read the whole study.