Executives and IT Professionals Reveal Preference for the Cloud over On-Premises Data Centers for Data Security

WAYNE, Pa. - June 7, 2018 - PRLog -- Executives and IT professionals revealed that they overwhelmingly believe the Cloud is the safest location for their data during environmental incidents, hardware failure and malicious attacks in a technology survey released today by Evolve IP^®. The survey also revealed that IT managers' belief in the Cloud is at an all-time high. This year's survey of more than 1,500 professionals, which provides current Cloud adoption trends and future Cloud deployment insights, also revealed that nearly six in 10 organizations would prefer having a single Cloud services provider handling their varied hosted solutions.

Over the last five years, confidence in the Cloud has soared while concerns about security have slowly diminished. Data points from the survey noting this shift include:

• Seven in 10 (72.5%) IT managers consider themselves Cloud believers, up nearly 20 points from 2013 when just 53% noted the same.
• The Cloud is considered safer for data than on-premises data centers during a variety of incidents. Specifically:
  • For environmental incidents, nine in 10 (91%) prefer the Cloud
  • For hardware failure, over eight in 10 (83.5%) prefer the Cloud
  • For malicious attacks, nearly seven in 10 (68.5%) prefer the Cloud
  • In all cases, private Cloud was preferred over both public Cloud and on-premises
• Four in 10 (46.5%) cite Cloud security as a concern; the lowest number reported since the survey's inception, and down nine points from 2013.

"Executives and senior IT leaders have been championing the Cloud in their organizations for years and we are now seeing a dramatic increase in support from IT managers and the teams implementing Cloud solutions," said Tim Allen, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and Founding Partner of Evolve IP. "Now that Cloud services are nearly universally accepted, and adoption is over ninety percent, the challenge for organizations has become how to strategically unify their current Cloud solutions, while seamlessly integrating them with existing applications and new Cloud services."

Allen continued, "At the same time, the day-to-day demands on IT have also increased inhibiting their ability to provide strategic insights and drive new initiatives for the business. We believe this is one compelling reason that across the board, for IT managers, IT executives and the C-suite, there is a preference for using a single Cloud services provider like Evolve IP."

Additional findings from this year's survey include:

• More than nine in 10 (91.5%) indicated that they currently deploy services in the Cloud
• Three in 10 respondents plan to evaluate or deploy a Cloud phone system. Three-quarters of them will do so in the next two years
• 40 percent of firms expect to evaluate or deploy Office 365. 70 percent indicated this will happen in the next year.
• Seven in 10 respondents noted that they faced compliance requirements. PCI (38.5%), HIPAA (37%) and SOX (19%) were the top compliances noted.
• 46% of businesses indicated that their budget for Cloud services increased in 2018 while just seven percent saw a decrease.

Survey Methodology

The blind, web-based survey was conducted by Evolve IP during January of 2018, featuring over 1,500 respondents in multiple industries across North America. 55 percent came from organizations with between 100 and 2,000 employees, 21 percent from companies with more than 2,000, 20 percent worked in businesses with 11-99 associates and 4 percent were small businesses with 10 employees or less. Evolve IP clients were excluded from the survey.

One of the world's fastest growing Cloud strategy companies, today Evolve IP provides best-of-breed Cloud solutions to more than 1,500 enterprises and to more than 410,000 users in virtually every industry. Many of the world's most recognizable brands rely on the company's Evolve IP OneCloud^TM strategy to migrate multiple integrated Cloud computing and Cloud communications services onto a single, unified platform including: contact centers, IP phone systems / unified communications and collaboration, identity management, disaster recovery, virtual desktops, IaaS, and more. Evolve IP's Compliance Cloud^TM provides assurances and dedicated expertise for organizations in: healthcare, finance, hospitality, automotive, insurance, veterinary, legal, technology, retail, and construction verticals.

WHY CLIENTS CHOOSE EVOLVE IP

The Cloud is no longer about buying individual services. It's now about having a strategy for multiple services and making them work together to provide greater IT efficiency. For over a decade Evolve IP has delivered customized strategies and integrated services for both Cloud computing and communications; solutions that are designed to work together and with the applications you already use in your business. The Evolve IP OneCloud lets enterprises move a service at a time, to a secure, virtual private environment, and our analyst-acclaimed solutions are built on a world-class, compliant architecture that leverages the blue-chip technologies organizations already know and trust. Our long-term success is built on a business deploying more services with Evolve IP so we are invested in our clients' future. As a result, we are obsessed with providing superior service in every aspect of our client relationships and this has resulted in the industry's highest verified client satisfaction.