IT and business executives agree that digital transformation and the use of hybrid clouds are key to competitive success in the digital age, according to a new study conducted by IDG Research Services for EMC Corporation.
The study reveals that organizations must “think digital” to enhance customer experiences, increase flexibility, drive business opportunities, and decrease costs. With 92% of respondents stating that their organization’s competitive strategy calls for digital business initiatives and 90% calling digital business a “top priority” for the next one to three years, the transformative power of digital business is a key driver for IT today.
Drivers behind these digital technology investments include:
■ Improving the customer experience (87% of respondents indicated this was a critical or very important goal)
■ Acquiring new customers (86%)
■ Increasing innovation (82%)
■ Enabling real-time business decisions (82%)
The transformation to digital business is complex and takes time, but 63% of respondents indicated they are well on their way to achieving their initial digital transformation goals.
That said, IT leaders are still facing hurdles including:
■ Budget and resources (38%)
■ Fragmented computing environments (30%)
■ Lack of the right technologies (29%)
To solve these challenges, IT leaders are turning to hybrid cloud environments, embracing a modernized infrastructure that involves two or more delivery models, including a traditional data center, a private cloud, a managed private cloud and a public cloud.
83% of respondents currently use or plan to use a hybrid cloud environment, and 73% agree that a hybrid cloud model creates a path to digital business.
The survey data indicates that digital transformation enabled by hybrid cloud helps organizations increase IT agility and makes implementing digital business initiatives a faster, easier and less expensive process. Furthermore, survey results show that, by reducing IT costs, hybrid cloud enables investment in digital transformation, and the most aggressive hybrid cloud adopters are also the most advanced at digital transformation.
Of those surveyed, organizations with a significant number of hybrid cloud workloads are three times more likely than non-adopters to be approaching their digital business and infrastructure readiness goals.
Jeremy Burton, President, Products and Marketing, EMC Corporation, said: “Becoming digital is a priority for nearly every business on the planet. But how to get there is not as obvious. This study makes it perfectly clear that hybrid cloud – and the savings and agility it brings with it – is a key enabler to becoming a digital business.”