Cloud decision makers identify silos as impediment to digital transformation

New research from Virtana reveals that 70% of cloud decision makers identify IT's ability to maximise business value is hindered by silos across teams.

The research, commissioned by Virtana and fielded by Arlington Research, shows that a lack of executive involvement in cloud efforts, along with cross-functional stakeholder participation, correlates with escalating challenges for enterprises.

Notably, only 26% of cloud decision makers claim C-suite executives are actively involved in their organisations' hybrid cloud efforts.

"There is a definitive competitive chasm developing within traditional enterprises between those that see the cloud as merely a part of the IT infrastructure, and those that see it as a strategic business enabler," says Charles Araujo, principal analyst of Intellyx.

"Those that see it as the latter are investing both resources and executive engagement in leveraging the cloud to drive competitive advantage, and have recognised that doing so requires managing it from a business as well as technical perspective to deliver transformative business results," he says.

Organisations that reported a lack of cross-functional cloud stakeholders are less likely than the overall respondent pool to have what they need in terms of cloud management tools and optimisation capabilities. In particular, only 16% reported having billing visibility tools (compared to 40% of the overall respondent pool), 30% have usage dashboards (compared to 44%), and 38% have capacity/usage planning tools (compared to 53%).

Organisations where IT is the exclusive cloud stakeholder are also more likely than the overall respondent pool to report a variety of cloud visibility and management challenges.

In particular, there is a double-digit difference in the number of respondents who reported the following:

• 85% agree or strongly agree that limited visibility across their hybrid cloud environment creates inefficiencies and wastes time (vs. 71% of the total respondent pool)
• 79% agree or strongly agree their team works in silos (vs. 67%)
• 78% agree or strongly agree that its hard to understand whether they are delivering the service levels required for business success (vs. 66%)
• 75% agree or strongly agree that it's difficult to identify the overall business impact of an issue (vs. 65%)
• 73% agree or strongly agree that they are unable to make data-driven IT investment decisions (vs. 63%)

"With growing cloud costs and the buzz around the cloud enabling digital transformation (not to mention the strategic importance of cloud), you would think execs would be all-in on breaking down siloed cloud procurement and management," says Jon Cyr, vice president of product management at Virtana.

"This research shows that most organisations are not there yet, but we expect this to change dramatically in the coming year," he says.

"As organisations gain more insight into cloud costs and management, the C-suite is sure to take notice."