Techaisle Blog

Techaisle’s US Enterprise Cloud survey conducted with senior IT decision makers shows that Cloud actually opens the doors to increased IT investment. For all the trepidation about the negative impact of cloud on IT budget and authority, data from the Techaisle US upper-midmarket/enterprise (1,000 employees to 10,000 employees) cloud survey indicates that advanced use of cloud actually drives higher IT spending. In 92% of US enterprises, IT has a voice on the board and helps drive the direction of the business rather than business deciding IT needs. There is also a great deal of near-term opportunity for a variety of SaaS providers in the US enterprise market: ten diverse application categories are included in near-term plans of 37%-41% of respondents.

Cloud adoption maturity & IT staffing impact

Survey data shows that cloud maturity does not correlate to reductions in IT staffing levels. The most and least mature cloud user segments have an average of 19.0 and 20.3 users per IT staff member, respectively. The two groups between the extremes have an average of 16.6 and 16.2 users per IT staff member. The roles may be different, but the survey data finds that absolute employment in IT shops does not decline with cloud use.

Techaisle SMB & midmarket cloud adoption survey shows that if US businesses follow-through with their plans for adopting hybrid cloud or for that matter, different types of cloud, then hybrid cloud penetration will have the highest jump within the SMBs, by over 100 percent while the Enterprise segment is likely to see a huge jump in public cloud adoption.

However, it is not a “gimme”. While it can be said that a hybrid model for IT service delivery is the reality for most organizations, it can also be said that smaller business may find reliance on public cloud services a simpler option. This is because hybrid IT, or hybrid cloud environments, are also the most complex to manage: while legacy systems, processes and thinking may inhibit cloud adoption, different business segments that are increasingly involved in procurement decisions may opt for siloed cloud application delivery without regard for the organization’s broader technical or overall process goals. And use of hybrid cloud will continue to increase as both a conscious strategy and as a reaction to use of both public and private resources within a single infrastructure.

A surprising outcome from the above chart is the decision trend of enterprise customers to embrace public cloud as the enterprise segment is finally finding that public cloud offers various benefits such as IT cost reduction, increased agility in business operations, increased scalability and flexibility. Public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud approaches each offer unique business benefits to the adopting organization. While public services can deliver rapid scale for temporary workloads or support smaller businesses that find appeal in OPEX procurement models, private cloud can deliver scale at better cost in some circumstances, while hybrid cloud offers better, faster access to formerly siloed sources of information.

Another view of the data collected in the surveys provides fascinating insight into the extent that cloud users are willing to align different delivery methods with internal requirements. When responses are taken from the small, mid-market and enterprise respondents and graphed in terms of cloud delivery method usage, Techaisle finds that there are pockets of demand (and overlap in these pockets) that exist for public, private and hybrid models in each market segment.

Related Research

360° on Cloud Computing in SMBs
US Businesses – Hybrid Cloud Adoption Trends
US Enterprise Cloud Adoption Trends
SMB & Midmarket Buyers Journey
SMB & Midmarket Cloud Computing Adoption Trends
The SMB Channel and Cloud: Success Metrics

For more details on Techaisle's Cloud research reports please visit or to see all of Techaisle's Cloud coverage please visit