Seven out of 10 (69 per cent) Canadian organizations said the cloud is very important.
In a recent global survey of 400 senior IT professionals from organizations in industries including financial services, manufacturing, public sector, retail and telecom, more than half (51 per cent) of respondents from Canada strongly agreed that cloud computing is essential in enabling business continuity within their organizations (compared to 49 per cent globally). Canadians are slightly ahead of their global counterparts in how much they rely on cloud with 51 per cent of respondents saying they strongly agree cloud computing is essential to the financial security of their organizations (compared to only 40 per cent globally).
This level of strategic importance placed on cloud has translated into organizational confidence in technology to help businesses maintain continuity throughout the current COVID-19 pandemic. For example:
• 53 per cent have used cloud services to provide customers with critical services (48 per cent globally);
• 77 per cent had used cloud to enable their remote workforces (76 per cent globally).
Even though Canadian organizations seem to have fully embraced the cloud, they still find picking the right solutions and plotting a course through different technologies difficult with 72 per cent of respondents somewhat or strongly agreeing that complexity and abundant choices make choosing the right cloud strategy difficult (62 per cent globally). A majority of respondents in Canada (77 per cent) even wanted to accelerate cloud adoption but needed expertise or help to make it happen (69 per cent globally).
Canadian businesses looking to adopt cloud services also face significant challenges in these areas:
• Getting full visibility into all cloud environments through a single portal (23 per cent in Canada versus 21 per cent globally)
• Control and governance of access to cloud environments (25 per cent in Canada versus 18 per cent globally)
• A clear mechanism to detect and respond to security threats across all cloud environments (24 per cent in Canada versus 21 per cent globally)
