'Cos in LatAm, APAC aggressive adopters of cloud computing'

Large companies in Latin America and Asia Pacific are the most aggressive adopters of cloud computing, while their European and US counterparts remain conservative about shifting applications to the new platform, a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) study today said.

Cloud computing facilitates sharing of technological resources, software and digital information. It operates on a pay-per-use model, helping companies cut costs as they do not have to invest heavily in infrastructure.

An average Latin American company has almost two-fifths (39%) of its total applications in the cloud, while Asia Pacific follows closely behind with 28% of its total applications in the cloud, said the study.

In contrast, less than one-fifth (19%) of the average US company's applications are hosted in the cloud, while in Europe the figure is closer to one-tenth (12%).

"We have reached the inflection point in cloud computing and there is no turning back. Cloud-based applications are already a substantial piece of large corporate IT infrastructure and the early benefits achieved are too substantial to ignore," TCS CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran said.

There is huge scope for growth in both developed and emerging economies and TCS firmly believes that cloud computing will continue to open up opportunities for companies across many different functions, he added.

The study involved senior managers and corporate IT executives from over 600 large companies across the globe.

According to the study, overcoming fear of security risks remains the key to adopting and benefiting from cloud applications.

While companies globally admitted this is the biggest challenge to leveraging cloud today, those in the US and Europe remain especially conservative in their approach to cloud adoption for fear of data security breaches.

Despite a significant shift to cloud applications, Western companies are also more sensitive about which applications they put in public clouds.

Only a fifth (20%) of US and European companies would consider or seriously consider putting their most critical applications in public clouds.

Companies in Europe and in the US also showed a reluctance to put applications with customer data in the cloud.

Interestingly, customer-facing business functions are garnering the largest share of the cloud application budget.

The study reveals that marketing, sales and services capture at least two-fifths of the budget across the four regions, with companies citing the desire to get closer to customers through cloud marketing applications as one example.

The study also said cost cutting is not in fact the biggest driver of cloud applications.