More than half (55%) of European manufacturers are now adopting a cloud-first approach, with adoption finally measuring up to the hype.
The report – Cloud Computing Tipping Point, conducted by enterprise cloud company, ServiceNow – also reveals that almost all (86%) expect to complete their shift to the cloud within two years.
This is significantly more than the 77% average across other sectors, including financial services, healthcare, professional services and retail.
The global survey of almost 2,000 mid- to senior-level managers explored the adoption, drivers, and implications of an increasingly cloud-centric world. It reveals game-changing consequences for IT departments as the influence of DevOps – software Development and information technology Operations – extends across manufacturing.
DevOps is driving the charge
Nearly every respondent (95%) from European manufacturers said they are involved in some way with the DevOps movement, which aims for early and frequent collaboration between IT and developers to drive the rapid creation and hosting of new apps and services.
A large majority (75%) also said that the rise of DevOps is a major factor in driving their move to cloud-first.
Cloud-first demands a new IT skillset
Many of those companies to have already completed the shift to a cloud-first model (89%) said their current IT staff lacked the required skill sets to be successful in the new cloud world.
Almost the same number of all respondents (88%) indicated that cloud could be a replacement for a formal IT department at least some of the time.
IT will have to adapt to this new reality, where most of the apps and infrastructure are outside the data centre, with 72% noting the cloud shift actually raised IT’s relevancy to the business, and 68% saying IT will be completely essential in the future.
ServiceNow’s Chris Pope commented: “For years, pundits have waited for an enterprise shift from traditional data centre computing to cloud computing. Today, reality meets hype in the manufacturing industry, and cloud-first consumption will accelerate at a break-neck speed in the next two years.
“Cloud is not new, so why was 2016 the year enterprises became cloud-first? According to the survey, the answer is the rise of DevOps. DevOps saw early that cloud computing could solve many of the issues they were grappling with. And DevOps’s ‘can-do’ vibe – enabled by cloud – is extending across the enterprise.”
