As cloud computing services attract increased adoption at many multinational companies across the globe, the procurement process is now being driven by senior executive leaders that seek to transform their enterprise into a digital business early-adopter.
According to the Technology Business Research (TBR) 1H16 cloud customer research program, the market for enterprise-grade cloud solutions is maturing and evolving with line-of-business (LOB) departments funding more cloud purchases than ever, therefore having more input into vendor and solution choice.
As this trend continues, cloud X-as-a-Service workload adoption -- public, private and hybrid cloud computing -- proliferates and professional services engagements morph into longer-term managed services deals from one-off systems integration transactions to help manage cloud sprawl.
Findings from the latest TBR research study show that cloud professional services have declined notably as a percentage of enterprise cloud budgets globally, as cloud workload adoption increases.
Cloud Services Market Development
"Over the past 12 months, the largest emerging opportunity in the cloud professional services market has centered on cloud brokerage and integration due to enterprises evolving their IT environments toward hybrid IT and multi-cloud, driving demand for automated tools and third-party services to optimize current assets," said Cassandra Mooshian, senior analyst at TBR.
TBR analysts believe that vendors will need to engage with LOB and IT department leaders to promote change management to help these departments work together as enterprises start to view public, private and hybrid cloud more strategically and collaborate more often on decisions and budget allocation.
Accordin to the TBR assessment, enterprise public cloud adoption continues to increase as hybrid IT growth pulls through public cloud as enterprises look to achieve more strategic objectives with their cloud purchases, creating broader opportunities for all cloud vendors.
Ongoing Cloud Services Market Research
TBR surveyed 4,047 enterprises across the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, China and India to understand adoption rates, buying behaviors and vendor landscape of the overall cloud market. Of the total survey population, TBR asked 1,416 cloud purchasers questions regarding their preferences, planned purchases and desired steps for vendors to make.
From the data, TBR produced four reports: Private Cloud Customer Research, Hybrid Cloud Customer Research, Public Cloud Customer Research and Cloud Professional Services Customer Research. TBR conducts this research semi-annually. In September, TBR will publish the topical report "Open Source Adoption" with findings from the same population.
