Page 24 - AeM_Feb_2018

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Emerging group of 'cloud

masters' accelerates the

ability to outperform peers

A global survey of 730 IT professionals, conducted by Rise of AI, machine learning and automation
Longitude, revealed that a small group of forward-
thinking businesses has reached cloud maturity with on Cloud is not the only technology investment that
average of 70% or more of their applications operating in businesses are looking to make in 2018. Oracle's
the cloud. Oracle and Intel partnered with Longitude research found that businesses are looking to capitalize
Research for the study that surveyed C-level and senior on new, innovative technologies, such as AI, machine
IT executives from companies that had an annual learning and automation in the next year. Over a
revenue of $1 billion or more, coming from 13 countries. quarter of IT executives felt that automation capabilities
were important to the business, second only to the
Having a cloud strategy in place isn’t enough organization's ability to offer multiplatform capabilities.
A fifth of IT executives were found to put an importance
Their research identified a small group of 'cloud masters', on AI and machine learning within the organization.
which are companies that are more data driven and
more savvy in getting insight from their business Although nearly two-thirds of respondents agree that
information, as well as more innovative and better able cloud adoption offers the ability to better meet customer
to respond to customer needs with greater relevance, demands, enable greater collaboration, improve
speed and agility, consequently with higher productivity scalability and agility, concerns over security remain a
and ahead of their peers. barrier; around 54% feel there are major security issues
in moving IT operations and data to the cloud.
The remainder are playing catch up despite most having
a cloud strategy in place and implementation underway. Contradicting this however, a similar number say they
Interestingly, while more than one-third (35%) of IT believe application security in the cloud is better than
executives surveyed stated that their cloud strategies are previously. In addition, respondents with a higher level
fully-developed and largely implemented, less than a fifth of cloud maturity and exposure revealed themselves to
of this group (18%) can be classified as 'cloud masters', be more confident in their cyber security capabilities
revealing a gap between what companies are talking than companies less ingrained in cloud – 65% rated
about and what they are doing. In terms of cloud their cyber threat detection as good to very good
strategy, an even larger proportion (43%) reported that compared to 38%.
strategy implementation is progressing. One-fifth,
however, say their strategy development for cloud is in The survey also shows a stark difference in analytics
its infancy. capabilities between those with a significant cloud
exposure and those of lesser maturity. Globally, more
"In 2018, the gap between 'cloud masters' and those than 60% of cloud-mature companies say they have an
lagging behind has the potential to widen significantly. increased ability to analyze most types of data and are
What we are seeing is that those with the most taking advantage of improvements in machine learning-
experience will be the quickest to exploit the new based automation and visualization, compared to
enterprise technologies and development methodologies nearer a third of companies at a lower stage. Eight in
and to use them to wow customers or develop 10 cloud-mature companies say they're realizing
competitive advantages before they become important gains from migrating data management to the
mainstream. This speed to market comes from having cloud and able to experiment with different data
the experience to apply the emerging technologies to models, and nearly as many say they generate better
business and from having invested in the right cloud insights from their data. This is in comparison to around
platform, infrastructure and tools. This means they can a half of organizations with lesser cloud maturity. ◊
accelerate their way to competitive success -- and if
other businesses don't catch up now, they could be
permanently left behind", Andrew Sutherland, Senior By MediaBUZZ
Vice President of Systems & Technology for Oracle
Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) & Asia Pacific
(APAC) at Oracle believes.

24 February 2018 - Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in Marketing