Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) currently rank joint first with the United States when it comes to cloud adoption, new research has revealed. A 2021 report shows A/NZ has shifted 43% of IT systems to the cloud in 2020. However, while this figure is set to advance to 52% by 2022, A/NZ will then rank joint third with France.
Australian and New Zealand enterprises have historically led the investment into the adoption of new technologies, with cloud strategies out of these markets world-leading according to the study. It is interesting to see local enterprises performing well when it comes to harnessing the cloud for speed, but less so across capability metrics said the researchers.
The study surveyed over 2,500 respondents from companies across U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. It covered a range of business performance goals related to the cloud and found specific links to competencies such as speed to market and capabilities.
A strong profit link was identified when using the cloud to rapidly bring new solutions and services to market. These investments provide a foundation to leverage AI and automation and build cloud-based new sources of revenue. The study found specific links between business profit growth and the use of the cloud to rapidly develop and launch new solutions and bring new functionality to market. The cloud’s ability to generate new value from data and discover new revenue sources also links to profit growth.
Specifically, these benefits are derived from an organisation’s ability to accelerate time to market, enhance business capabilities and build a competitive edge. The study found that the highest performing businesses had annual profits growth that correlated with using the cloud in six ways.
- Speed up how they develop and launch new solutions
- Add new functions to software in use
- Expand processing capacity
- Foster collaboration
- Unlock value from data via AI
- Discover new revenue sources.
Superior cloud performance requires high levels of adoption and orchestration. Cloud-fuelled profit boosts can be attained by companies in any region or industry. However, they only kick in when businesses have at least 60% of their systems in the cloud. To benefit from AI on the cloud, the bar is even higher. Businesses must have at least 80% of their business functions – such as cross-domain business applications – in the cloud for AI to boost profit growth.
Despite the acceleration in cloud adoption, only a fraction of large companies reached the highest level of performance and adoption, the report shows. The study found that nearly 1 out of 6 companies achieved exceptional cloud performance.
In cloud adoption terms, fewer than one in five have crossed the 60% threshold to reap the profit benefits. By 2022, more than 40% of enterprises surveyed plan to shift over 60% of systems into the cloud, from 17% today.
According to the report, companies delivering exceptional performance in the cloud show a strong motivation to use the cloud for business growth, namely, increasing speed to market, adding capabilities, and increasing scale.
The researchers conceded that today’s cloud creates a network effect across processes, data, content, experience and more. This network effect keeps enterprises relevant in a rapidly changing new digital age.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, the world has seen rapid acceleration to technology adaptation and migration to the digital space all because of the limitations brought by the ongoing pandemic. In New Zealand, five years of worth of advances in the digital transformation of businesses has occurred in eight weeks, due to COVID-19. This is the key finding of a new report by a New Zealand tech company. Also, the report finds that digital or digitally enabled products accelerated by seven years during that time frame.
Furthermore, this growth looks set to continue with findings showing that just a 20% increase in uptake of cloud computing by small to medium businesses will result in increased GDP. One of the obvious reasons behind this trend is that businesses have had to provide the ability for employees to work remotely.
