The Largest Ever Indian Cloud Survey
Indian cloud services market in India has been witnessing rapid growth and is likely to surpass $5 billion by 2021 from the current estimate of approximately $3 billion. Over sixty percent of Indian businesses are using cloud services in various forms such as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, They are deriving major benefits including scalability on demand, optimised resource utilisation, faster speed to market, cost savings, low to nil capital expenditure through pay-as-you-use model.
While the country is witnessing rapid growth of cloud adoption, the market is witnessing intense competition from global cloud players such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, IBM Softlayer, Alibaba and home grown cloud service providers – CtrlS (Cloud4C), Netmagic and others. Today more than ever, CIOs are playing a pivotal role in steering digital transformation within their respective organisations to align with business objec-tives and cloud has been playing a key role as a force multiplier. We therefore initiated a CIO Cloud survey to understand how the cloud players stack up. The survey focused on preference, their current cloud provider, SLAs, customer support, security, reliability, technical support and pricing effectiveness.A total of 5,481 Indian CIOs and IT Leaders took part in this detailed survey. Our research team analysed the survey critically to present the following summarised survey outcomes. Interestingly, AWS, Microsoft Azure, CtrlS (Cloud4C), Google appear to be the frontrunners in Indian Cloud market followed by IBM and Netmagic.
MOST PREFERRED PUBLIC CLOUD PROVIDER
Brand preference of Indian CIOs indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure to be the number one player(s) while CtrlS (Cloud4C) as second most preferred cloud brand followed by Netmagic and Google Cloud.
PUBLIC CLOUD THAT CIOS HAVE WORKED WITH
47% of Indian CIOs indicated that the top three cloud players they have worked with are AWS, Microsoft Azure and CtrlS (Cloud4C). They are closely followed by Google Cloud, Netmagic Cloud, and IBM Cloud.
CLOUD PLAYERS WITH BEST SLA
Every business today requires that the cloud applications enjoy seamless availability without disruption/outage, to ensure the services are delivered as per the expectations, CIOs leverage service level agreements (SLAs) with defined uptime, and other terms and conditions for provisioning and subsequent consumption of services.
The CIO Cloud Survey on SLA indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure are rated best in SLAs at number one followed by IBM Cloud and CtrlS (Cloud4C), Google Cloud at number two and three respectively.
CLOUD PLAYERS PROVIDING BEST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
AWS, Microsoft Azure were rated at the top by CIOs followed by Google Cloud and CtrlS (Cloud4C) as the second best. Netmagic emerged as the third best provider followed by Alibaba Cloud and Sify CloudInfinit.
The survey indicated that CtrlS (Cloud4C) is rated number one among India (Home Grown) cloud players followed by Netmagic, Sify CloudInfinit and NxtGen Cloud. It is indicative that Indian cloud players need to work hard in ensure customer experience, if they are to take on Global Cloud Players in the Indian market.
CLOUD PLAYERS PROVIDING BEST SECURITY AND RELIABILITY
The CIO survey indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure at the number slot followed by Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and CtrlS (Cloud4C) provide the best cloud security and reliability. Robust security controls combined with resiliency of cloud are key parameters.
CLOUD PLAYERS PROVIDING BEST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Round the cloud technology support and being available to support is a key to ensuring the information technology issues are addressed in a timely manner. The CIO survey indicated that AWS provides the best technology support followed by Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and CtrlS (Cloud4C).
CLOUD PLAYERS PROVIDING BEST SCALABILITY
The CIO survey has indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure and CtrlS (Cloud4C) provide the best scalability and are rated number one, two and three respectively followed by Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Netmagic Cloud.
CLOUD PLAYERS PROVIDING BEST PRICING
The CIO survey has indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure and CtrlS (Cloud4C) provide the best and optimized pricing for cloud services in the Indian Cloud Services market. A deep survey by our research team indicated that CIOs are seeking cost effective pricing and customised pricing based on their unique business needs.
Summary
The CIO Cloud Survey 2019 has indicated that AWS, Microsoft Azure and CtrlS (Cloud4C) are the top three cloud players in the Indian market. The cloud market has seen a rise in wide adoption of SaaS among large enterprises and small and medium enterprises, while IaaS would witness rapid growth in the next five to six quarters. CIOs have very clearly indicated that price-performance is key while security and reliability is key to selecting a cloud service provider. For those cloud players, who are indicated to be lagging as per the CIO survey, it is imperative that they re-invent their strategy to improve their brand perception, brand experience and service experience. With cloud services market likely to surpass the $5 billion mark by 2021, almost all cloud player in the Indian Cloud Market will find a unique place for themselves respectively. Last but not the least, we would like to express our thanks to the 5,481 Indian CIOs and IT Leaders who actively participated in this survey.
