Cloud spending by manufacturers is expected to increase dramatically by 2017, according to a manufacturer survey conducted at the Manufacturing ISV Cloud Summit earlier this year. Spending will see particularly strong growth within manufacturing, engineering and operations units according to the survey. The research was sponsored by cloud software providers ICIX, Propel, Rootstock, Salesforce and Tavant Technologies.
Researchers expect cloud spending by manufacturers on certain types of software to triple next year. They attribute the increase to encouraging results from those global manufacturing companies that have adopted cloud technology. The strongest growth is expected in manufacturing, engineering and operations units.
Cloud Spending by Manufacturers
Lower IT costs, higher employee productivity, gains in process automation and enhanced visibility of data were among the biggest cloud benefits cited by respondents to the ISV Cloud Summit survey.
Other key findings:
- Manufacturing companies have reaped big rewards and lower costs from their early internal cloud adoption. Over 60% of respondents said cloud apps have helped them realize internally focused benefits.
- The shift to cloud solutions will accelerate quickly. Eighty percent of operations departments, 70% of engineering groups and 59% of manufacturing departments expect to grow their use of enterprise cloud apps dramatically by 2017.
- Surprisingly, IT decision-makers in manufacturing, operations and engineering have been more cautious than their marketing and sales counterparts in adopting cloud platforms. Only 19% of manufacturing, 20% of operations and 25% of engineering departments are currently using enterprise cloud apps.
“Manufacturing and operations professionals have clearly realized that building on one common cloud platform throughout an enterprise has enormous benefits,” ICIX Chief Marketing Officer Brian Roufa was quoted. Benefits, he said, include “improved productivity, better automation of information sharing for improved decision-making and greater transparency.” With this shift, he said “companies are now moving more and more of their core business functions to the cloud.”
