Cloud remains long-term investment priority for 70% corporations: TCS study

75% respondents say they invested in AI, machine learning capabilities in the past two years

Cloud remains a long-term investment priority for 70 per cent of major corporations despite macro headwinds and the recent slowing of growth of global cloud providers, according to a new TCS survey.

‘Connected Future: How Cloud Drives Business Innovation’, the IT services company's global survey of 972 senior executives, found that innovation is a major driver of cloud investment. As many as 59 per cent of them said that cloud is crucial as a catalyst for innovation that will shape their organisation’s future.

This appears particularly true for artificial intelligence (AI): 75 per cent of respondents invested in AI and machine learning capabilities over the past two years, while 78 per cent plan to do so over the coming 12-24 months. Both technologies are highly dependent on access to large amounts of data and scalability through the cloud.

Interestingly, more than a third of respondents (37 per cent) have made progress in their goals for cloud-enabled innovation in the form of new business models, underlining the growing power of cloud to drive new revenue.

The study found that a majority of respondents–67 per cent–use cloud technologies to achieve sustainability goals. However, 43 per cent reported difficulty in understanding the carbon footprints of cloud service providers. This suggests that while most respondents see cloud as an important part of their sustainability strategy, and increasingly use cloud tools to assess their own carbon impact, they are now demanding the same visibility from their cloud service providers.

Industry clouds or ‘vertical clouds’ are rapidly emerging as a fast path to acquiring greater business expertise and capabilities, with an overwhelming majority of respondents (73 per cent) reporting that they are already assessing, adopting, or using them in business today.

Companies want to participate in digital ecosystems, but most are still far from realising their full value: 66 per cent of respondents are still in the earliest stages of transition towards mature digital ecosystems. Critical skills shortages continue to affect businesses in the cloud space, with over half (52 per cent) of respondents reporting a lack of full cloud proficiencies in-house.

“Cloud is a frequent source of short-term ROI anxieties, but growth and transformation is a long game. Reconciling these two realities is a challenge and a necessity, but fully achievable with the right strategy and planning. This is critical because cloud is now the unifying digital fabric of every enterprise, fueling powerful technologies—from generative AI to edge and quantum computing—and is ushering the next wave of innovations now and into the future,” said Krishnan Ramanujam, president of Enterprise Growth Group at TCS.    

The 2023 TCS global cloud study surveyed 972 senior executives at companies exceeding $1 billion in annual revenue from multiple sectors across Asia, Europe, and North America. A majority of the companies report annual revenues in excess of $5 billion.