Leaders in Cloud Adoption Achieve 10 Times Greater ROI, Wipro Finds

Wipro, an information technology, consulting, and business process services company, found that leaders in cloud adoption approach their cloud journeys differently and achieve a 10 times greater annualized return on investment.

Wipro considered leaders to be the top 19 percent of respondents based on cloud maturity, while beginners represented the lowest 32 percent.

"Cloud is no longer just for cost savings or building agility. Our new report demonstrates that cloud drives high-impact transformation and benefits at every level of the business, including the bottom line," explained Rajan Kohli, president and managing partner of integrated digital, engineering, and application services at Wipro. "As enterprise leaders look to grow their business and respond to shifting markets, cloud capabilities fueled by a well-orchestrated partner ecosystem are an ideal choice to accelerate growth.

According to Wipro's research, the primary benefit of cloud adoption has shifted from increasing efficiency to driving profitability and revenue. This trend will continue as the cloud becomes more intelligent, hyperconnected, and pervasive, the research concluded.

Survey participants said their use of the cloud provides a range of financial, operational, and strategic benefits, most of which will increase substantially in the next two years. In fact, 59 percent of firms expect the cloud will help them increase revenue; 54 percent expect it to help them improve profitability, and 49 percent expect it to help decrease costs.

Wipro's report also describes ways in which cloud leaders approach their journeys differently than beginners. Among the best practices that it identified are the following:

• Investing beyond the data center and cloud infrastructure in areas that set the stage for better returns;
• Engaging senior executives, including the CEO, to sponsor cloud initiatives; and
• Developing capabilities and aligning metrics for success.

Leaders, Wipro concluded, augment their investment in cloud services with additional technologies, helping 21 percent of them achieve an ROI "significantly above expectations" compared with just 10 of non-leaders. Additionally, 78 percent of cloud leaders combine artificial intelligence with cloud, compared with 49 percent of non-leaders; and 50 percent of leaders expect to increase their cloud investments for cybersecurity and risk-management in two years.

Wipro further expects that by 2023, eight out of 10 leading firms will have advanced or fully optimized cloud environments in place, while 19 percent of non-leaders will still be in their planning or early phases of implementation.

Based on its findings, Wipro encourages companies to identify and prioritize their most effective cloud use cases over the next two years.