Organizations gaining competitive advantage through high cloud adoption are reporting almost double the revenue growth and nearly 2.5 times higher gross profit growth than their more cloud-cautious peers.
That's according to the results of a recent IBM survey of more than 800 business decision makers and users worldwide.
The survey also revealed that the cloud's strategic importance to decision-makers, such as CEOs, CMOs, finance, HR and procurement executives, is poised to double from 34% to 72%. This compares to the strategic importance of IT at just 58%.
The survey found that one out of five organizations is ahead of the curve on cloud adoption and achieving competitive advantage - not just cutting costs and driving efficiency - through cloud computing.
These leading organizations see the benefits of using the cloud -- they are 170% more likely to use analytics extensively via cloud to derive insights for better business decisions.
In addition, IBM's research found that leading organizations are looking to the cloud to differentiate them from their competitors. In fact, they are 136% more likely to use cloud to reinvent customer relationships.
Compared to more cautious cloud adopters, leading organizations are:
- 117% more likely to use cloud to enable data-driven decisions
- 79% more likely to rely on cloud to locate and leverage expertise anywhere in the ecosystem for deeper collaboration.
- 66% are using cloud to strengthen the relationship between IT and lines of business and the majority are using cloud to integrate and apply mobile, social, analytics and big data technologies.
The study findings suggest that business and technology leaders should prioritize cloud investments in areas where they can differentiate from the competition.