In its 10th year, Foundry’s 2023 Cloud Computing research was conducted to measure cloud computing trends among technology decision-makers, including adoption plans, spending, business drivers, challenges, and top cloud growth areas, such as AI. While cloud adoption is continuing at pace, there are signs that the frenzied activity that took place during and following the pandemic period is easing somewhat. This year’s study found that 57% of organizations have accelerated their cloud migration over the past 12 months, however this was 69% last year.   

Organizations recognize the value of cloud computing, as half of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) state that cloud capabilities have helped their organization achieve sustainable revenue growth over the past 12 months. However, adoption and migration do not come without challenges that cloud providers must address. When asked about the biggest obstacles to implementing their cloud strategy, the top three stated by ITDMs are controlling cloud costs, data privacy and security challenges, and lack of cloud security skills/expertise.

Our study explores these challenges in more depth and also highlights what technology buyers need from their current and future cloud providers in order to successfully advance their cloud strategy.

Key takeaways for tech marketers:

  • Cloud budgets continue to increase – IT decision-makers report that 31% of their overall IT budget will go towards cloud computing and two-thirds expect their cloud budget to increase in the next 12 months.  
  • Organizations are defaulting to cloud-based services when upgrading or purchasing new technical capabilities. It’s important to have a grasp on what business objectives are driving these cloud investments.
  • IT decision-makers have plans for artificial intelligence and cloud computing, as the majority say AI/ML is the top cloud growth area this year and it is the number one cloud capability ITDMs plan to adopt.
  • Due to an increase in cloud investments, organizations have added new cloud roles and functions. Understand their business needs and responsibilities when creating your messaging.
  • Despite the benefits organizations see from the cloud, a variety of challenges still get in their way, mostly around cost control, security expertise and a skills gap. Provide solutions to your customers and prospects to combat these challenges.

View the sample slides below for further insights on the cloud computing research:

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About the research

Foundry’s 2023 Cloud Computing Survey is the 10th year of this research and was conducted to measure cloud computing trends among technology decision-makers including: adoption plans, spending, business drivers, challenges, and top cloud growth areas, such as AI. The study was fielded throughout August 2023 and is based on the responses of 893 global IT decision-makers that are involved in the purchase process for cloud computing and their organization has, or plans to have, at least one application, or a portion of their infrastructure, in the cloud.