Michael Dell personally presented the results of a survey commissioned by Dell, which found significant obstacles to the adoption of technology, which he said was a good thing for Dell and its partners.
Dell CEO Michael Dell
AUSTIN — Dell has released findings from its first Global Technology Adoption Index (GTAI), which examines organizations’ use of cloud, mobility and big data, and they found that security concerns have been a major concern. That, says Dell CEO Michael Dell, creates terrific opportunities for Dell and its partners.
“We wanted to know where technologies were and were not being adopted,” Dell said. “GTAI shines a spotlight on obstacles that have been holding back midsize businesses from adopting these technologies.”
The data indicate that significant problems with adoption remain, and they revolve around security.
“Security is the number one obstacle to cloud, mobility and big data adoption,” Dell said.
The Dell GTAI found that 44 per cent of IT decision-makers still consider security the biggest barrier for expanding mobility technologies. Cloud computing is even worse, with 52 per cent saying security is a problem to adoption. 35 per cent said it was an issue in leveraging big data.
“Cloud and mobility are being fairly widely adopted, Dell said. “Big data is another story. There is a lot of talk but hardly any of them know how to use it.”
Only one in four organizations surveyed actually has a plan in place for all types of security breaches.
“Only 32% have a BYOD policy, and there is a fear of security breaches, which add to the mobile hesitation,” Dell added. In addition, only 39% have a workforce that is fully aware of the organization’s own security rules.
Security is also primarily used defensively, against hackers and to meet compliance rules. Only 13 per cent of those surveyed are using security to enable new things, and only 18 per cent are using security as a competitive advantage.
The study found the security barrier becomes even more serious as the C-suite becomes less engaged. Only 28 per cent of organizations polled have a C-suite mindset that is fully engaged with security initiatives. On the other hand, organizations where executive leadership is involved in security, show much greater confidence. Where organizations are very confident in their security, 84 per cent of senior leaders are fully or somewhat engaged, compared to only 43 per cent of senior leaders at organizations who are not confident in their security.
Dell said the conclusion here was obvious.
“Security must be a business priority, not just a policy in the IT organization,” he stressed.
On cloud, the GTAI survey found nearly every IT decision-maker surveyed said their company either uses or plans to use cloud solutions, with only 3 per cent saying they are not planning to leverage cloud solutions. The business benefits of cloud computing are strong, and even stronger when organizations use more than one type of cloud solution. For example, organizations using three or more types of cloud solutions experienced a 15 per cent increase in employee productivity relative to those using only one type of cloud solution.
“So why isn’t every company using cloud?” Dell asked. “Because choosing the right solution isn’t simple.” Only 58% are presently using a partner to help with this.
The GTAI study also found that organizations collect it, but often don’t use it.
“61 per cent had some big data that could be analyzed, but only 39 per cent were actually doing it,” Dell said. The survey also found that big data is less of a pressing issue than security, cloud and mobility, even though the average three-year growth rate (14 per cent) for those most effective in leveraging big data is almost twice as high as that of organizations least effective in using big data (8 per cent).
Michael Dell emphasized that for the company and its partners, these concerns are very good news indeed.
“This all translates into a tremendous opportunity,” he said.
2,038 employees of midsize public and private organizations—distributed across 11 regions worldwide and multiple industries—were surveyed between July 15 and Sept. 2, 2014. The survey has a confidence interval of +/- 2.2 percent.
