UK companies are buying services from at least three different cloud providers on average as they struggle to find single suppliers to manage multiple workload types.
Research from Telstra showed that despite two-thirds of IT decision makers in the UK wanting to procure all cloud services from a single provider, the majority have purchased offerings from three vendors, resulting in a complex cloud environment that may be hindering their agility and speed to market.
Telstra’s research revealed that while four in ten (41 per cent) UK enterprises have adopted IaaS – with 41 per cent planning to adopt it in the near future – cloud providers can do more to guide businesses on their IaaS migrations.
"Adoption of IaaS also varies widely by industry, with manufacturing (61 per cent), professional services (54 per cent), and the finance and insurance sectors (46 per cent) most likely to be using the technology. Conversely, the higher education sector has been the least likely to adopt IaaS, with more than a quarter (27 per cent) having no implementation plans at this stage," Martin Bishop, Head of Network, Applications & Services, Telstra Global Enterprise & Services.
As businesses look to expand outside the UK to new and emerging markets throughout Asia and around the world, Telstra’s research found 38 per cent of respondents would opt to use a global rather than local service provider, with only 19 per cent preferring this option.
"We are living in a buyers’ market and our research suggests that in an effort to satisfy diverse customer expectations, many UK businesses initially turn to multiple cloud vendors to meet their various infrastructure needs. The result can be a complex cloud environment that is hard for the business to manage, integrate and control," said Bishop.
"The market has shifted and customers now have the power to do what they want, when they want and how they want."
The research is based a interviews with 675 IT decision makers in five countries/regions: US (200 interviews), UK (200), Singapore (100), Hong Kong (95), and Australia (80).
Respondents work for organisations in the private sector with 250 or more employees.
