Indian Businesses Turn To IT To Fuel Growth

VMware, Inc., the virtualisation and cloud infrastructure company, has announced the findings of its 4th annual VMware Cloud Index, a study that was conducted by Forrester Research across 12 Asia Pacific countries. The study reveals that nearly 9 of every 10 (89 percent) respondents in India believe that Cloud Computing, or ‘as-a-service’ approach, is relevant to their organisation and nearly 8 of every 10 (79 percent) respondents in India say they currently have a cloud-related initiative in place within the organisation, or are planning to implement cloud, or ‘as-a-service’ approach, in the next 12 months.

An interesting trend according to the VMware Cloud Index 2013 is that Indian organisations are turning to IT to help them grow the business in the current economic environment. IT is seen as a change enabler and source of business value for organisations by 85 percent of the respondents. In terms of the top business priorities in India over the next 12 months, 87 percent of IT decision makers said improving the quality and capabilities of their products and 85 percent said addressing the rising expectations of customers and improving customer satisfaction. The study also shows that the current perception of IT remains positive in India with 63 percent of respondents noting that the perceived credibility, influence and power of the CIO in their organisation is increasing.

More from Biztech

Future Group - Reliance Retail Deal approved by CCI RBI ban on cryptocurrencies takes effect; prohibition could force investors to tap the black market

“Business priorities are clearly shifting at a time when optimism is slowly returning to the Indian economy. Business leaders recognise and expect IT to deliver much more ROI; they want the agility and flexibility to adapt to the dynamics of the marketplace while continuing to lower operating costs,” said T Srinivasan, managing director, VMware India and SAARC at the launch of the study in Mumbai. “Our customers have been on a journey towards IT–as-a-Service and VMware has been at the forefront of assisting companies through the phases of IT transformation to realise the business benefits of virtualisation in the mobile cloud era in India. We remain committed to evolving the software-defined datacentre architecture to address IT’s critical needs - enabling businesses to build infrastructure that is radically simpler and more efficient,” he added.

The Software Defined And Mobile Cloud Era In India

In terms of priorities for IT over the next 12 months, improving IT agility & responsiveness to business demands was high at 82 percent and operational efficiency was noted by 80 percent of respondents. Additionally, server consolidation via virtualisation continues to be a strong priority at 77 percent.

Respondents in India are also aware of and are planning around new and evolutionary priorities. A software-defined approach to implementing and managing datacenter resources (servers, storage, networks) was stated by 71 percent of respondents. Furthermore, mobility and consumerisation of IT was also noted by 71 percent as expected to create a lasting impact for organisations over the next 2-3 years.

Fast provisioning and zero downtime from networks (80 percent) and storage (81 percent) have been identified as key areas for IT to address over the next 12 months in the study. 68 percent believe if their company doesn’t improve the way they deliver or ‘provision’ these services to the business, they risk falling behind competitors. Nearly half of the respondents also view internal resistance to change hindering cloud or ‘as-a-service’ adoption within their organisation.

Consumerisation Of It Gains Acceptance Across Indian Businesses

While 71 percent of IT decision makers are concerned about end users accessing corporate systems and applications from mobile devices, 73 percent believe that their IT organisation are able to keep up with the end user computing needs of their employees. In fact, 65 percent claim to already have a formal strategy in place for supporting end user computing clearly showing that Indian businesses are acting to cater to the needs of the new age worker.

“Continued investment and innovation in end-user computing by companies like VMware, are helping IT organisations free the desktop, redefine the corporate workspace and embrace a new way of working in the mobile cloud era,” said Srinivasan.