E-commerce Eye Candy – Enterprise Cloud Adoption [Infographic]

October 22nd, 2012 by Elan Sherbill

Whether they are deciding to adapt their business’s infrastructure to a cloud network, or figuring out how to integrate legacy systems, c-level executives, enterprise procurement departments and IT professionals are challenged by the surge in cloud-based technology.

The cloud creates additional challenges for B2B software companies, in that they must now decide whether to build and sell SaaS versions of their products.

Research from the Everest Group and Cloud Connect addressed these challenges in a survey sent to enterprise procurers, vendors and consultants. The results appear very positive toward cloud adoption, but also illustrate several disconnects between buyers and sellers of enterprise cloud solutions.

As you can see from the image below, vendors tout the reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) as the top reason to adopt cloud solutions, whereas buyers view TCO as a relatively unimportant reason. Rather, buyers see the reduced time in getting the solution up and running as the most important driver. This information can be useful to marketers of cloud-based/SaaS solutions who may need to reframe their value propositions to prospects.

And for those B2B software companies deciding whether to create a SaaS version of their product or not, consider this: 85% of enterprise buyers have already adopted some cloud based solutions and close to 90% of decision makers are planning to increase their adoption of cloud-based solutions.