We promised to bring you the full findings of our IT survey of 100 chief financial officers (CFOs) in mid-sized UK headquartered firms conducted by Vanson Bourn on behalf of SunGard Availability Services.
Two thirds (66%) of those responsible for financing it expenditure admitted to not fully understanding the benefits of moving to cloud computing, although this is recognised as being a key technology to reduce it spend. This is particularly concerning as almost two thirds (62%) of CFOs expect their it budgets to remain static over the next three years.
More than half (56%) of those polled said they are deterred from outsourcing the management of their it infrastructure by the perceived security risks. The research showed that these fears are exacerbated by high profile media stories about third party it outages or data losses with nearly half of respondents (45%) confessing that such cases make them more inclined to keep their data in-house, despite the cost implications.
While almost half (45%) of CFOs said they aspire to remove data centres from the balance sheet, almost two thirds (60%) had concerns over loss of control in handing data over to a third party. This concern could be attributed, at least in part, to a lack of understanding as less than a third (28%) said they knew the distinction between private and public clouds, which as you will know, differ radically in terms of security and resilience!
Interestingly, the survey highlighted a marked difference in attitudes between home and work use of the cloud. More than two thirds (67%) of CFOs have eagerly embraced cloud-based apps such as Hotmail, GoogleMail and Spotify for their personal use, while just over a quarter (26%) currently use corporate applications in the cloud.
A solid record and history of resilience in protecting customers’ data was rated the most important attribute in a third party provider by 49% of respondents, followed by a well-known brand name (35%) and impressive ROI statistics cited by just 16%.
The findings suggest that organisations are looking for a solution that offers all the benefits of the cloud – such as cost savings and increased agility – but where data and applications are stored in a fully resilient and secure data centre that allows firms complete control. As this is exactly what a private cloud offers, it is clear that those with it responsibility probably need to do more to educate financial decision-makers about the benefits of moving to the right cloud environment.