Cisco-Sponsored Study Reveals 53 Percent of Organizations Expect Cloud to Drive Increased Revenue Over Next Two Years and 44 Percent of Organizations Are Either Using or Planning to Implement Private Cloud, Signaling Second Wave of Cloud Adoption

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 26, 2015) - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today released the findings of a global study that indicates cloud is moving into a second wave of adoption, with companies no longer focusing just on efficiency and reduced costs, but rather looking to cloud as a platform to fuel innovation, growth and disruption. The study finds that 53 percent of companies expect cloud to drive increased revenue over the next two years. Unfortunately, this will be challenging for many companies as only 1 percent of organizations have optimized cloud strategies in place while 32 percent have no cloud strategy at all.

The Cisco-sponsored InfoBrief "Don't Get Left Behind: The Business Benefits of Achieving Greater Cloud Adoption" was developed by International Data Corporation (IDC) and is based on primary market research conducted with executives responsible for IT decisions in 3,400 organizations across 17 countries that are successfully implementing private, public and hybrid clouds in their IT environments.

Nick Earle, Senior Vice President, Global Cloud and Managed Services Sales, Cisco
"As we talk with customers interested in moving to the second wave of cloud, they are far more focused on private and hybrid cloud -- Primarily because they realize that private and hybrid offer the security, performance, price, control and data protection organizations are looking for during their expanded efforts. This observation, which drove our strategy to build a portfolio of private and hybrid infrastructure and as-a-service solutions, is reflected in the new IDC study, which shows that 44 percent of organizations are either currently using or have plans to implement private cloud and 64 percent of cloud adopters are considering hybrid cloud."

In the study IDC identifies five levels of cloud maturity: ad hoc, opportunistic, repeatable, managed and optimized. The study found that organizations elevating cloud maturity from the ad hoc, the lowest level to optimized, the highest, results dramatic business benefits, including:

• revenue growth of 10.4 percent
• reduction of IT costs by 77 percent
• shrinking time to provision IT services and applications by 99 percent
• boosting IT department's ability to meet SLAs by 72 percent
• doubling IT department's ability to invest in new projects to drive innovation.

Economic Benefits for Advanced Cloud Organizations