As cloud adoption escalates, so do the associated costs. Cloud computing expenditure now accounts for around a third of an average company’s IT budget, according to research by IDG Enterprise.

It is therefore imperative that cloud spending is carefully managed.

Consistent patterns are revealing how executives establish an IT launchpad that accelerates cloud migration and digital transformation. In evaluating its enterprise customers, Masergy found congruent themes that expose a three-step process for innovation readiness:

The potential for cost savings is one of the top three reasons for cloud adoption, according to survey by the Cloud Industry Forum but whether expected savings are realised in practice is another question.

A third of customers will abandon a brand they love after just one bad experience according to a survey by PwC of 15,000 international consumers. The obvious conclusion is that customer experience ought to be an absolute priority for businesses aiming to maintain or expand their market share. The challenge for enterprise is to optimise experiences across the multiple channels through which customers now interact. How do you enable consistent quality of communication across the physical, online, mobile and social spheres?

More than 80% of organisations are operating with hybrid cloud infrastructure of some sort. The rate of adoption tripled in the year up to 2017 and continues to rise. One of the major drivers of this trend is that, for a variety of reasons, full transition to the public cloud has proven more challenging than first anticipated. Hybrid cloud has emerged as a more comfortable option with less risk and lower costs.

How is cloud better for business? That’s a thorny question which has been considered by countless senior executives over time as they’ve sat down and weighed up the benefits of varying IT strategies.

Barely a week goes by without a major cyber security story hitting the headlines. Only recently, the WannaCry virus swept the globe, followed swiftly by the NotPetya ransomware attack. In both cases, malicious software paralysed the IT capabilities of major firms, leading to data being locked up for long periods of time.

We have reached a defining moment when it comes to the adoption of the cloud. These days, many companies no longer see it as a means of making marginal cost or operational savings, but instead view cloud as the basis for delivering true business transformation.

Horizon scanning in the IT sector is an unenviable task. The rapid pace of technological development means innovative software and services can appear from nowhere, often with disruptive effect.