As already mentioned in former article “61% of Romanian Companies are investing in Cloud” CIO Council Romania launched few days ago the results of the study “Cloud Adoption. Strategiile de IT se redefinesc în business” (Cloud Adoption, IT Strategies from Business perspective).  Based on the participation of 107 big companies, this study is a first coherent research dedicated to Romanian market permissively for cloud technologies, and a good reflection of cloud computing adoption rate.  

Why is important CIO Council study?

Here are some considerations of the main results filtered by methodology & addressability elements. First of all, this study is representing a first professional research focused on cloud technologies adoption between Romanian companies. Being the second edition, we could make a parallel with 2012 study results, helping us to evaluate an average development rate for the next years. The main results of the study will help first of all the local and international Cloud services providers to better calibrate the offers, function of the market potential. In the same time, Cloud adoption status could be considered as a Macro indictor for the innovation at every CIO level, having in IT departments a real development engine, with direct impact in business evolution.

The CIO Council study is based on participation of 107 large and big organizations, more than 48% of them having more than 100 Million Euro turnover, and 58% estimated value over 1 Million Euro for IT budget.

Which are the main 5 key conclusions provided by the CIO Council study?

Please see below with some personal comments also:

• 61% of Romanian companies are using cloud services in this moment – this is the main idea opened by this study. From these, 36% are using private cloud infrastructure (which is normal), 7% public cloud services (this is good), and 18% different forms of hybrid cloud. There are optimistic results for a still considered emerging market, but we have to consider also many of pool participants are multinational companies with local subsidiaries or affiliated business entities, and the cloud services are part from a corporate system.
• Scalability, development time, and cost reduction were the most important drivers which were appreciated as determinants for cloud adoption. Which is normal, because these are the main 3 benefits are companies of any size decided to migrate part of his infrastructure or business applications in cloud.
• Security, data & services availability, and legal issues are considered as main inhibitors for cloud adoption. Something new here? We are in the normal trend… Data protection and availability are always a big challenge for any organization, and low regulations are the main issues of local government, which have to adopt very quick regional and international standards.
• e-Mail & Office Suites (44% of answers), CRM (33%), and ERP solutions (30%) are the most popular SaaS services in Romania, according CIO Council survey, which is also a normal hierarchy starting from the fact the most suitable apps that could be migrated in the cloud or used from cloud providers are related to communication & collaboration, customer management, and enterprise resources administration. SaaS versions for BI, Operation Management, Security and SCM business applications are coming also with decreasing percentage in Romanian companies cloud adoption casement.
• Starting from the assumption only 39% of companies participating in this research are not using any form of cloud solutions, and from estimation this share will decrease with average 10% per year, as Felix Enescu stated during official announcement, CIO Council is predicting in 2017 all big companies from Romania will use at least one form of cloud services.

In my opinion, we have to consider a more accelerate adopting trend.

It is very clear not all infrastructures and all application could be migrated in the cloud, and this is not the case. But considering the highest dynamic trends: cloud, Big Data and mobility, any big company interested in keeping competitive advantages and business proficiency should invest in innovative technologies. And this is means we could expect 95%- 97% from interviewed companies to adopt at last a cloud service until 2015-2016.

Cloud adoption and IT investment of big companies is important for a general appreciation of country potential, but we have not to minimalize the major role of SMB sector for general economy. And reality is in this moment, without investment power and government support, Romanian SMBs didn’t have resources for technology adoption, as driver for business performance.

Starting from this, cloud is offering the big chance for any organization to open access to highest technologies and business tools. Like any other emerging country, Romania has the unique opportunity to make the change from current domestic market to global economy.

Data source & Picture source: CIO Council Romania