In this blog, we explore customer perceptions around technology today. Find out how - and why - people are talking about cloud, and the key steps to implement it within your business. 

The adoption of cloud has rapidly increased over the last five years, in fact, 415 Research revealed that in 2019, 90 percent of companies adopted cloud technology and another study conducted by Cisco, found that cloud data centers will process 94 percent of workloads by 2021. However, while many organizations have begun implementing SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions or have started using cloud to accelerate IT modernization, many are struggling to scale cloud across the entire enterprise.

Taking a ‘lift and shift’ approach of simply moving legacy systems to the cloud, without a clear transformation strategy, can create further challenges for firms’ IT systems. CIOs must understand that cloud adoption is an organization-wide decision – considering the impact across the entire operating model. 

Using a social media listening tool, we wanted to understand what people are saying about cloud online. We gathered data from social platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, plus other online sources, between January 1st, 2019 – November 18th, 2019. It is evident from the number of mentions (5,305), that there is a lot of discussion happening around cloud. But what are people really saying, and is the conversation more positive or negative? 

Our results show that the number of mentions with a positive sentiment are significantly higher than negative ones. However, there is still a fairly large number of negative mentions. We wanted to discover why by analyzing the language used in the posts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that negative mentions tend to focus on the unknown aspects of cloud, or issues with cloud providers.

We also looked at the emotions of people talking about cloud online and the majority fell into the ‘joy’ category. To get a more comprehensive overview of emotion towards cloud, we gathered data from the beginning of 2019 to November 18th. The results are similar, but ‘anger’ and ‘joy’ both have a large proportion of mentions – is this representative of the joy of seeing the potential of cloud technology but the frustration and anger at how challenging it can be to adopt it widely across your organization?

In our next search, we wanted to gain a better understanding of current industry trends, and what is being spoken about the most on Twitter.

This topics cloud allows us to see the topics with the highest number of mentions. According to this data, out of the three main cloud providers Amazon Web Services appears to be most popular, with 2,316 mentions over the past seven days. Since launching in 2006, their dominance in the market has grown exponentially, and in 2018, they owned nearly half of the overall public-cloud infrastructure market (47.8 percent) – which explains why they have the highest number of mentions. 

The other keyword with the highest number of mentions is SaaS, which comes as no surprise as in 2019, almost 70 percent of the examined cloud deals signed by banks included a SaaS delivery.

We also wanted to explore the demographic breakdown of cloud conversations and this is what we found: 

As you can see from the numbers, there is a more significant gender split for this topic than there was in our other Attitudes to Finance blogs. This may be reflective of the wider industry - according to a 2018 study, only 20 percent of all technology jobs were held by women, which explains the uneven split in our results. 

The gender insight prompted us to delve deeper into the demographics. Using Brandwatch, we were able to see the professions of people who are talking about cloud online. 

As expected, the top profession of people discussing the cloud on Twitter is ‘executives’, followed by roles in sales/marketing/PR.. The ‘journalist’ profession also comes as a surprise but may indicate the relevancy of this topic within the media. 

We wanted to take this further and find out which industries are talking about cloud, and which are not. Using Brandwatch, we were able see who the top tweeters were in 2019 so far. The data told us that seven out of the ten top tweeters all worked within technology and data. But what about organizations across other industries, who are yet to embrace cloud transformation? Often, knowing where to start is the biggest challenge, so, we spoke to our resident cloud expert, Derek Lum, UK Head of Cloud Advisory, who shared his top tips for successful cloud implementation:

1. Adoption is an organizational activity, not just a technological one – to be successful, focus on the business outcomes and drivers.  Ensure your cloud adoption strategy lines up with your business objectives.

2. People & Process – Focus on upskilling your organisation with the requisite skills to get the most out of cloud technology.  Update your internal processes such as financial approvals in line with how cloud technologies are procured.

3. Don’t bite off more than you can chew – focus on frequent, incremental change and measurable benefits. Adopting cloud technology can be a complex, lengthy process that requires not just technical ability, but a cultural shift to a new way of working.  Maintain momentum and show benefit frequently.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing the top online trends and topics of conversation in financial services today. If you want us to analyse a specific topic, email capcomailbox@capco.com. 

You can also contact Derek Lum here.