Manufacturers are embracing the public cloud, with 85 percent of Line of Business (LOBs) decision makers using some form of public cloud services to cut costs (33 percent) and drive efficiencies (29 percent), a new study from EMC, VCE and VMware today reveals. The research, which questioned over 600 business decision makers across the UK, shows that the majority of these deployments are happening in collaboration with IT: over three-quarters (87 percent) of LOBs consult IT, with almost half (43 percent) running everything by them, including the final-decision making process. As manufacturers take advantage of the scale, flexibility and agility of public clouds, the study highlights the main reasons for adoption: almost half (44 percent) use it to host internal digital applications and services, such as HR, meeting scheduling and purchase management apps, with just over a third (37 percent) relying on it for data back-up and recovery services. This is closely followed by those using it to host external digital applications and services (35 percent).
However, despite overall enthusiasm for the benefits that public cloud services can bring to a business, manufacturers are still concerned about security and data management issues. LOB decision makers cited worries about security exploits (50 percent), internal data loss (36 percent) and the reputational cost to the business of these services being breached (43 percent) as prime concerns. Just 8 percent of respondents said they had no concerns over using public services. Despite this 50 percent of manufacturing LOBs expect the amount they spend on IT to increase by 25 percent over the next year.
“Manufacturers are united in their appreciation and use of public cloud services, and understandably so – it can offer the agility and flexibility that many LOBs in the industry need to keep up with rapidly changing market demands,” comments Rob Lamb, Cloud Business Director, UK and Ireland, EMC. “For manufacturing IT departments to be more heavily involved in LOB IT decisions, they need to embrace a cloud strategy that allows others to continue cutting costs and drive efficiencies while mitigating security and data lost concerns.”
“To truly realise the full benefits cloud computing can offer, the IT department must offer the business easy access to cloud services, but in a controlled, compliant manner,” comments Richard Munro, Chief Technologist and Technical Director for vCloud Air, EMEA at VMware. “It’s here where a hybrid cloud strategy can fit seamlessly, allowing IT and businesses to embrace the public cloud with confidence, in a secure and manageable way.”
