INDUSTRY WATCH
“BUSINESSES
STILL LACK
CONFIDENCE
IN WHERE
TO PLACE
SPECIFIC
WORKLOADS.”
T
he global research from
Pure Storage, which
included a survey of
500 IT decision makers in the
MEA region, finds that 72%
of businesses in the region are
committed to being information-
based companies and as such, are
embracing digital transformation.
The key factors driving adoption
of digital solutions in the region
are new business models (52%),
need for faster innovation (47%),
customer demand (47%),
competition (43%), new customer
acquisition (43%) and cost
savings initiatives (42%).
It’s clear that businesses in
the region are facing digital
transformation head-on, as
77% see more demand in the
business for real-time analytics
and interactive simulations than
a year ago and digital solutions
are typically driving almost half
of revenue (47% on average) for
MEA organisations today.
But despite this growth, technical
complexity (53%) and reliance
on IT to deliver strategy (41%)
have prevented businesses in the
MEA region from truly becoming
digital. Public, private and hybrid
cloud, SaaS and traditional on-
premises all have momentum, but
businesses still lack confidence in
where to place specific workloads:
• On average, businesses in the
MEA region are running 48%
of applications with traditional
on-premise IT – higher than
both public cloud (23%) or
private cloud (24%)
• Security (57%), availability
(52%) and performance
(47%) are cited as key drivers
for continued use of traditional
on-premise and as such, 39%
of businesses expect their on-
premise usage to grow over the
next 18-24 months
www.intelligentcio.com
James Petter, Vice President, EMEA
at Pure Storage
• Although, security continues to be
cited as the main concern with public
cloud (38%), 69% of businesses say
they will increase their public cloud
usage in the next 18-24 months. In
parallel, private cloud (57%) and
SaaS (56%) usage are also expected
to grow in the same timeframe.
• Interestingly, 76% of businesses in
the MEA region think that cloud and
on-premise should complement one
another rather than compete
“Evolution 2017 shows that businesses
in the Middle East and Africa are
making significant steps towards
digital transformation, but the report
also reveals some key barriers to
progress. Cloud confusion seems
evident in workload fragmentation
and cloud repatriation. As data
volumes continue to grow and unlock
greater opportunities, managing and
harnessing data with a future-proofed
approach is essential for organisations
in the region,” said James Petter, Vice
President, EMEA at Pure Storage.
“Pure’s vision is to help customers put
their data to work, by delivering an
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