The document outlines the evolving trends and perceptions of cloud computing among small and medium businesses (SMBs), highlighting a shift from viewing cloud as a cost-reduction tool to recognizing it as a platform for business growth and agility. Key findings include the roles of business decision makers (BDMs) and IT decision makers (ITDMs) in driving cloud adoption and the importance of a hybrid cloud approach. The report emphasizes the need for cloud suppliers to adapt their messaging and solutions to meet the diverse requirements of SMBs in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

1. Data You Can Rely On | Analysis You Can Act Upon
www.techaisle.com
The 360 on Cloud Computing
SMB Cloud Computing Adoption Trends

2. Table of Contents
• SMB Business Issues, IT Challenges, Priorities
• Business Issues, IT Priorities & Challenges
• Connecting IT with business priorities
• The ‘net net’
• Current and Planned use of Cloud Computing Solutions
• Current & Planned deployment of Cloud Solutions
• Understanding the gateway to new platform and business capabilities
• Key cloud workloads and applications
• Differences in small business & mid-market SaaS adoption patterns
• Free vs. paid cloud applications
• Current and planned use of Private, Hybrid, Public clouds
• Benefits and Inhibitors
• Greatest benefits that SMBs receive from cloud solutions
• Key inhibitors for cloud adoption
• Looking back at 2011, Overcoming Cloud Adoption barriers
• Value of cloud solutions to business growth

3. Table of Contents…continued
• Key Attributes of a Successful Cloud Solution
• Assessing success: key cloud solution elements
• BDM and ITDM perspectives
• What describes SMBs cloud computing status? As a center-point, supplement or complement?
• IT or Business: Who is driving SMB cloud adoption
• Who leads in the cloud area within SMBs – IT or Business and their respective roles?
• SMB Cloud Security Management
• With respect to security of cloud-based applications and data – what roles do business management, IT
department and third parties play?
• Roles and responsibilities in cloud security management
• SMB Cloud Future: When will cloud usage patterns change – and how?
• Where are SMBs heading from here? Tracing the trajectory SMB cloud usage
• Workload and application perspectives
• The final word on ‘when’

4. Background
There are few absolute certainties in technology – but one subject that is beyond debate is the fact that cloud computing has
permanently changed the ways in which IT is deployed and consumed within businesses. If we think back to the time before
the “great recession,” we can picture an era in which:
• A key constraint on new systems was the infrastructure cost. To support new systems, businesses needed to purchase new
products – and these acquisitions entailed detailed cost/benefit analysis, were subject to available CAPEX budget, and
typically needed to be operated for a minimum of 3-5 years, a period corresponding to the depreciation cycle associated
with the platform hardware.
• A key constraint on introducing new/improved automation for business processes was the development queue. IT was (and
still is) stretched in many directions, and much of its time and budget was/is consumed with maintaining existing systems.
New automation projects might not require a lot of dedicated time – but because they were competing for scarce
resources, the elapsed time between need identification and new system deployment was often measured in years.
• End-users were beholden to IT for service. The grip of technologists was already starting to erode in the last decade as new
tech-savvy generations of end-users and managers came to the fore, but IT still controlled the ‘engine’ – the servers and
networks needed for deployment of business-critical systems. End-users could, in some cases, turn to outsourcers for help
in accelerating the queue, but were generally limited to deploying applications on “IT’s infrastructure”.
• Systems users worked for a company and on its premises. While again, we had started to see use of technology to enable
remote work prior to 2009 the concept was still something of a novelty. Employees might have the ability to work from
home occasionally, but most work-days were in the office, and few staffers worked primarily from transient locations.

5. Objectives
Looking at this same list now, it is stunning to see how much corporate IT realities have changed in the last five years.
Today, an increasing proportion of infrastructure is rented rather than purchased, sourced with OPEX funds from
remote suppliers. Agility has become the watchword for new automation projects, and acceptable timeframes are no
longer calibrated in months. End-users can source applications, infrastructure and other needed services from a wide
variety of online resources. And workers are tethered to the corporate infrastructure by their smartphones and
tablets, not by the cables attached to their desks.
Most of these changes are attributable in part or in whole to cloud computing. Cloud infrastructure provides the
basis for OPEX-based, flexible-timeframe infrastructure rentals. SaaS providers are able to deploy new automation in
hours rather than months. Mobility is not really a discrete initiative so much as it is a key attribute of ubiquitous
infrastructure. And IT now competes for corporate IT influence and budgets – it is no longer the “final word” on
IT/business solution strategies.
Spurred by these changes, Techaisle conducted a unique survey of SMBs. To better reflect the reality of distributed IT
influence and authority, we surveyed roughly equal numbers of business decision makers (BDMs) and IT decision
makers (ITDMs), asking both groups to provide a “360° perspective” on the critical IT/business trends within their
organizations.

6. Executive Summary
• The times, they are demandin’. In 2014, the SMB business community is turning its attention to growth – and our
data shows that there is recognition of the ability of technologies, including (and notably) cloud, to help expand
business activity. Budget constraints remain an impediment to IT spending, and SMBs are challenged with mobility
management issues.
• Impact/implications: Our data shows that cloud has evolved from being seen as a cost-reduction option to a
platform for business growth. We believe that suppliers will need to evolve their messaging accordingly – not
abandoning discussion of savings or CAPEX vs. OPEX, but evolving to highlight the ways that cloud provides
opportunities for interacting with new customers and increasing business velocity.
• Why is cloud being used within SMBs? In many organizations, cloud may have first been introduced as a means
of reducing CAPEX and/or overall IT costs, but today, it is viewed by SMBs as a means of increasing business agility and
of introducing capabilities that would have been cost or time-prohibitive to deploy on traditional technology.
Companies in the “middle” of the SMB market – those with 50-250 employees – emphasize the ability of cloud to
make IT staff more productive, while smaller and larger organizations are primarily interested in enabling business
staff.
• Impact/implications: To connect with SMB buyers, cloud suppliers need to be able to deliver a story highlighting
the ways in which their services provide support for businesses that are planning to use the cloud as a platform
for agility, and as a means of automating business processes. Productivity and integration will be important
components of successful marketing activities.

7. Executive Summary……….continued
• Who is driving cloud adoption? Techaisle’s research shows that ITDMs are primarily responsible for cloud’s platform technologies –
IaaS, and virtualization and mobile device management – and that they share authority for SaaS with BDMs. However, the capabilities
based on these foundational technologies – mobility, Big Data, BI/analytics, collaboration and social media – are largely directed by
BDMs. BDMs also have taken a leadership role in the solution process steps (need identification, strategic and operational planning, even
evaluation) that lead to a sale. ITDMs retain responsibility for deployment and training, but optimization is now also primarily the
responsibility of BDMs.
• Impact/implications: Most IT vendors are used to selling to ITDMs, but this data indicates that the key initial steps in the solution
market are now the preserve of BDMs. BDMs also have primary responsibility for optimization, which in cloud, leads directly to
new sales opportunities. Suppliers will need to cope with a broader decision making unit (DMU) comprised of BDMs and ITDMs,
and ensure that messaging around productivity and new capabilities is effectively communicated to – and resonates with – BDMs.
• What kinds of cloud are in use? Our research shows that SMBs use a mix of public, private and public clouds – and that
organizations often use two or three of these approaches simultaneously. The data suggests that the cloud deployment process starts
with the business requirement, and moves back to the deployment model – rather than starting with a platform, and expanding across
incremental workloads.
• Impact/implications: This is an important point for suppliers. If cloud selection is not a ‘religious issue,’ then accounts are not won
or lost at a single platform decision – they are won or lost on a workload-by-workload basis. This argues for suppliers ensuring
that their value propositions are closely aligned with workload requirements, regardless of the core delivery strategy they are
promoting.

8. Executive Summary……….continued
• When will cloud usage patterns change – and how? Working from survey data, Techaisle has created forecast scenarios that
examine coming shifts in the SMB market. Our analysis demonstrates the coming dominance of hybrid as a delivery model – which
drives increased demand for both public and private cloud as well – and provides high-growth forecasts for cloud storage, data backup
and cloud security at a workload level, and for vertical applications, content publishing, CRM and BI/analytics in SaaS.
• Impact/implications: It can be difficult to parse through the many, extraordinary growth projections for cloud. By connecting
user intentions for growth in overall cloud adoption with adoption patterns for delivery, workloads and applications, we
provide readers with the data needed to calibrate the growth needed to keep pace with or exceed the overall SMB cloud
opportunity.
• Roles and responsibilities through the cloud security process.In this report, and throughout the industry, we are told that
BDMs are playing an increasingly important role in IT generally, and in cloud particularly. In this section, we look at data showing that
users have primary responsibility for setting cloud access policies, but that in most other cases, IT has primary responsibility for
ensuring the security and compliance of cloud systems.
• Impact/implications: The data analyzed in this section highlights two key vulnerabilities. A troublingly-substantial proportion of
small businesses either does not know who is responsible for specific security activities or believe that the requirements do
not apply to their businesses, and both small and medium businesses demonstrate an over-reliance on cloud suppliers.
Techaisle believes that security vendors need to work more closely with SMB clients as they move to the cloud (and/or move
new workloads to the cloud), to ensure that their organizations take appropriate measures to protect against malware,
leakages and other issues.

9. Executive Summary……….continued
• Attributes of successful cloud solutions. Techaisle’s survey results clearly demonstrate that small and
medium businesses and ITDMs and BDMs all view support for mobility (and information access generally) as a
key attribute of cloud success. Small businesses are also focused on the inherent cloud capability to deliver
backup, continuity and disaster recovery, while mid-market firms view access to scalable compute and storage
resources as a key cloud success attribute. Like small businesses, BDMs view continuity/backup/DR (and security)
as key cloud deliverables – likely, as a result of a need to bridge the gap between setting policy and managing
security processes highlighted in the ‘roles and responsibilities’ section of this report – while ITDMs demonstrate
relatively acute interest in whether their cloud providers can deliver integration with physical systems and
support for managed IT environments.
• Impact/implications: Drilling down into the data, we see that there are attributes (for example,
collaboration) that have particular appeal in employee size or role-defined segments. Techaisle believes
that the suppliers who are able to attach demonstrated capabilities to the particular needs of specific
segments will be best positioned to build new relationships with firms in those areas.
Taken as a group, these trends provide a detailed outline of what is needed by SMBs as we move through a period of
intense growth spurred by the combination of increasing cloud penetration and increasing cloud workload density.
Techaisle provides readers with the fact-based insight needed to take share-building action on these issues in this SMB
Cloud Computing Adoption report. Its seven major sections are aligned with our clients’ key information requirements.

10. Methodology, Deliverable & Contact
• Phone based Primary Research with ITDMs and BDMs
• Analysis by employee size (1-9, 10-19, 20-49, 50-99, 100-249, 250-499, 500-999) and BDM
(Business decision maker) / ITDM (IT decision Maker)
• Reports delivered in PowerPoint format for individual countries
To purchase or inquire about more details:
Contact: Inquiry@techaisle.com
For more information: www.techaisle.com