The use of the cloud among medium and large organisations has more than doubled in Africa the five years between 2013 and 2018. Moreover, the benefits experienced in the major IT markets of Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, differ regionally.
These are some of the key findings of the latest Cloud Africa 2018 report, which IT market research company World Wide Worx conducted on behalf of global networking application company F5 Networks.
The research team interviewed top decision-makers at 300 medium and large organisations in Kenya (50), Nigeria (50) and South Africa (200), earlier this year on their cloud computing usage, benefits and intentions.
Respondents in Nigeria (80%) and Kenya (75%) named business efficiency and scalability as the most important benefit, with only 61% of South African respondents citing this as a top priority.
Sixty eight percent of respondents in SA cited speed of deployment as the most prominent benefit, while only 48% of companies in Kenya and 28% in Nigeria saw it as key.
"Over the five years since World Wide Worx conducted equivalent research, use of the cloud among medium and large organisations has more than doubled, from less than 50% using it in 2013 to pervasive use in 2018.
"Today it is no longer about whether to use the cloud, but what benefits are being gained from the cloud," said Arthur Goldstuck, MD of IT market research organistion World Wide Worx, yesterday in Johannesburg.
"These depend heavily on the dynamics of each market, so we were not surprised to see that businesses in each country emphasise different benefits. This phenomenon can be seen with most advantages of the cloud. In South Africa, with a more mature IT landscape, the focus is on the competition rather than the business itself," he continued.
The results indicate that the preferred providers for cloud services in the three markets are Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud, Amazon, IBM and VMware.
Business benefits
The research found cloud computing is making a positive impact on business, with businesses in Nigeria seeing the highest impact and South Africa the lowest.
"No less than 82% of respondents in Nigeria had seen an impact on market share, with 48% seeing a high or very high impact.
"In Kenya, the overall positive impact dropped to 69%, but also with 48% seeing high or very high impact on market share.
"SA lagged behind, at an overall 66% positive impact but only 33% high or very high impact on market share," explained Goldstuck.
However, in regard to innovation, all markets appear equal.
"Innovation within the organisation saw an equally high impact in the three markets, with a unanimous 100% positive impact in Nigeria, 98% in Kenya and 88% locally."
Despite Nigeria's lagged cloud uptake and innovation, companies in the West African country are seeing maximum impact as they have embraced the technology, the research showed.
"Because the cloud leapfrogs traditional information technology systems, it means companies that embrace it are seeing an instant impact. This compares to the local market, where the cloud has been adopted only gradually, and legacy systems still play a key role for most companies," said Goldstuck.
Bigger budgets
Another key finding is that companies are now, more than ever before, willing to spend more on cloud computing. According to the results, 90% of the surveyed companies in SA have increased the allocated budget for cloud computing, and a further 83% said they will continue to increase budgets in 2018.
"In Nigeria, 78% said they had increased budgets last year, and 94% said they would increase their spending this year. The biggest increase comes from Kenya, however, with 74% of companies having increased cloud budgets in 2017, rising to a massive 98% in 2018," explained Goldstuck.
According to the results, leading industries such as IT software and services companies (92%), mining (85%) and retail trade (83%) were said to be the big spenders within local landscape.
The biggest drop in cloud budgeting was seen in the engineering sector, with a 13% decline in planned spending.
"Ultimately, the cloud is about better ways of doing business," concluded Goldstuck. "That is clearly reflected in cloud priorities and budgets across Africa."
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