While adoption of cloud services may appear to be ubiquitous, a second wave is about to hit, with private cloud in particular being the focus.
According to a global study from Cisco and IDC, companies no longer want to use cloud to focus on efficiency and reduced costs, it will now be used to fuel innovation, growth and disruption.
Although 53% of companies expected to use the technology in this way, only 1% have optimised cloud strategies in place and 32% have no strategy in place at all. This could result in any second wave falling flat.
According to the report, private and hybrid is being considered predominantly because of perceived security, performance and control benefits.
Although the expected second wave may indicate a growing level of maturity in the market, with companies elevating cloud from a low level to optimised, the reality appears to be that business strategy is not mature.
Fabio Gori, director of cloud marketing, Cisco, said: "The big news is that only 1% of organizations worldwide are in this kind of optimized situation. Everybody else is still making and finding their own way forward."
The research reveals typical benefits of cloud adoption such as speed, efficiency and revenue growth.
The adoption of hybrid cloud is being considered as businesses look for portable workloads 33%, to overcome security concerns 47% and to automate policy 67%.
Due to the ever present security concerns, it is no surprise that respondents were looking to providers that they already know, with 83% preferring to trust their major IT provider to provide cloud services as well.
This security concern is potentially a factor in why 49% of British organisations are using or plan to use private cloud, compared to 38% for public.
IDC surveyed 3,643 IT decision makers across 17 countries.
