Private Cloud enables 89% of Organisations in the Middle East to Innovate Faster, Oracle Research Finds

Cloud uptake to continue growing at pace as considerations evolve beyond security

New research from Oracle reveals that 89% of enterprises in the Middle East believe the private cloud enables them to innovate faster. The study of 458 companies in the Middle East, Europe and South Africa, conducted by IDG Connect on behalf of Oracle, found that half (51%) of businesses will have reached cloud maturity within two years, while the concerns and considerations around moving to the cloud have evolved.

For hybrid cloud adoptions, traditional barriers, such as concerns over security, are being displaced by operational concerns such as managing multiple IT architectures and network bandwidth. Those building private cloud infrastructures continue to see security as the prime concern.

Respondents also cited “winning the support of key business decision-makers” as the most important building block of successful hybrid cloud infrastructures, suggesting that influence on cloud deployments extends beyond IT into broader business functions. For private cloud infrastructures, respondents cited “standardization of IT” as the most important. These figures suggest that the CIO’s role is more important than ever in coordinating multiple architectures and effectively communicating the benefits of cloud deployments to the wider business.

Key findings from the research in the Middle East include the fact that 89% of respondents said that the cloud enabled them innovate faster; 70% said it helped to retain existing customers; and 76% said it helped them win new customers.

One-in-five businesses (19%) have reached ‘cloud maturity’, with 38% saying that they will have reached maturity within two years. Respondents identified the most important building blocks for successful hybrid cloud deployments as winning the support of key business decision-makers (36%), building a strong relationship with a supplier (30%) and cost efficiency (15%). The biggest barriers to hybrid cloud adoption are managing multiple IT architectures (60%), Scalability (60%) and network bandwidth (58%) .

Johan Doruiter, Oracle’s Senior Vice President of Systems in EMEA, commented: “As cloud rapidly reaches maturity, we are seeing a shift in how enterprises perceive the chief benefits and barriers to adoption. Traditional areas of high concern such as data security and reliability are moving down the list and these are actually cited as key benefits of cloud adoption by most enterprises.

“These traditional concerns have been replaced by the operational worries, including how to manage multiple IT architectures and ensuring networks have sufficient bandwidth. For enterprises that are reaching maturity with their cloud deployments, it’s increasingly important to be able to manage public, private and hybrid deployments through a single, consolidated view.”  

”We see an understandable difference in security focus between private and hybrid cloud deployments”, said Bob Johnson, Vice President and Principal Analyst, at IDG Connect..

“For companies focusing on private cloud deployments, security is a prime concern, indicating that enterprise workloads are moving into the cloud. Organizations with the hybrid mix of on-premise and public cloud services have realized the benefits of opening up their infrastructures to partners and customers, and as a result are open to a corresponding enhancement of the strength, maturity and sophistication of their security systems.”