Information security and cloud services will have maximum impact on businesses in the next 3-5 years: VMware

Sharing the key findings from a VMware-commissioned study, VMware India manging director, Arun Parameswaran said, “With nearly 25 percent of all IT workloads being managed in the cloud today, and the number expected to double by 2021, it is evident that the traditional on-premises IT environment is undergoing a profound change.

Cloud infrastructure and business mobility firm VMware said information security and cloud services will have maximum impact on businesses in the next 3-5 years. While sharing the key findings from a VMware-commissioned study, VMware India manging director, Arun Parameswaran said, “With nearly 25 percent of all IT workloads being managed in the cloud today, and the number expected to double by 2021, it is evident that the traditional on-premises IT environment is undergoing a profound change.

Conducted by Kantar IMRB, the study suggests how IT/ Data security is a key challenge organisations face in the mobile cloud era and how most organisations surveyed are keen to adopt cloud computing to enhance business agility and efficiency – hence information security and cloud services will have maximum impact on businesses in the next 3-5 years.

As per the research findings, even though organisations are progressively looking for a modern business environment, they are concerned about having a proper security environment in place owing to the open nature of the Internet and increasing cyber threats. 86 percent of organisations see their IT budget increasing over the next 3 years and 80 percent of businesses are willing to invest time, money and skill on cloud services.

The study surveyed IT leaders and decision makers from a number of Indian companies across various verticals, ranging from medium-sized enterprises to very large organisations. Each respondent was interviewed via a structured questionnaire on their business and IT priorities for their organisations in the next three years.

According to finding of the report, companies are willing to invest time, money and skills on cloud services and currently the adoption of the public cloud is high compared to that of private/hybrid cloud. Only basic data such as emails, messaging services, CRM are stored on the public cloud owing to data security concerns

Study findings reveal that very large enterprises (80 percent), large enterprises (83 percent) and medium enterprises (82 percent) are likely to invest in private cloud. Likewise, a high majority of them are also keen to invest in public and hybrid cloud.

While business and performance is a key priority, the study indicates IT security is now a major concern and has gone up the business priorities list. 87 percent of respondents in the IT/ ITeS/ Telecom sector; 55 percent of respondents in the manufacturing sector; 64 percent in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI); 53 percent in government/public sector/defence; and 65 percent from other services agree IT security is amongst the top business priorities.

Apart from CIO’s focus on IT operational efficiency and improvement of IT agility, managing security and compliance risk is gaining prominence as a top IT priority for companies. 61 percent of respondents from BFSI and 57 percent of respondents from IT/ ITeS/ Telecom rank managing security and compliance high owing to the nature of their business.

Despite increase in IT budgets in very large enterprises, CIOs are unhappy as the budget is either insufficient nor aligned properly. Findings also indicate that respondents from the government (70 percent) and BFSI (67 percent) feel that budget for security should increase by 25 percent over the next year.

Losing customers’ trust and public disclosure of sensitive data are considered as main concerns by organization. 87 percent of organisations’ security team want to have business data safe from breaches and secure against cyber-attacks.
“This study brings to light what CIOs should look out for in the next three years where new security approaches are needed as data center infrastructures increasingly move to the cloud,” said Parameswara.

Kantar IMRB claims that the survey was conducted from May to June 2016 across five industry verticals including Manufacturing, Banking and FSI, Government/ PSU / Defense, IT/ ITeS/ Telecom and Other services (Media, Healthcare, Retail & other Professional Services) covering Pan-India locations. Inputs were gathered from over 150 respondents across a variety of companies ranging from medium-sized to very large organisations. All respondents surveyed were IT leaders and decision makers in their respective organisations with designations that included CIO or an IT Head.