Multiple clouds deliver data value

By 2024, 95% of organisations across EMEA will be looking to their data as a revenue driver, with 46% recognising it as a significant source of revenue – up from 29% today. This is according to new research announced by VMware Inc.

The research, entitled The Multi-Cloud Maturity Index, was conducted amongst almost 3,000 business and IT decision makers across EMEA, and reveals that nearly half (47%) strongly agree that using multiple clouds will enable them to maximise their data to innovate – while addressing critical issues such as national and sector data sovereignty. In fact, data sovereignty is highlighted as one of the key challenges facing organisations – with 95% admitting it’s a concern.

The ambition to realise more value from data, however, comes with additional challenges. Security (35%), skills (35%), difficulty stitching different cloud environments together (31%) and siloed access to data (27%) remain key obstacles. Organisations must also improve the control they have over their operational and cloud expenses, with 76% and 74% respectively agreeing this is a concern if data is to drive genuine business value. 

“The reliance on data to fuel innovation and drive competitive advantage is now the backbone of the digital business. Being cloud smart – the ability to choose the right type of cloud for the right data, including highly sensitive information that needs to remain within national borders – is becoming the de facto business model for organisations looking to drive advantage from their data,” said Joe Baguley, VP and CTO VMware EMEA. “Organisations who are fully exploiting the competitive advantages of using multiple clouds to manage data are seeing benefits across the business. To achieve success, however, they must be able to take control of where their data resides – without compromising security, compliance or sovereignty, and the choice of providers to manage it.”

“Our Digital Retail Strategy 2026 is built on a ‘data-centric, digital-first’ approach. Data, and the cloud it runs on, are at the heart of all our operations and our value creation model. This digitisation will improve the customer experience with greater personalisation, increase operational efficiency at headquarters as well as in stores, and have a positive effect on the Group’s revenue,” explains customer, Damien Cazenave, CTO and CISO Carrefour France, a leading global retailer.

There is agreement (86% of respondents) that the benefits of multi-cloud – the ability to use and manage different types of private, public, edge and sovereign clouds – outweigh the challenges. Almost half (46%) believe multi-cloud use has had a very positive impact on revenue growth, while 46% also believe it has had a very positive impact on profitability. In fact, only 4% believe multi-cloud is not critical to business success.

And this is even better news for organisations across Europe, where the data economy’s impact on GDP in the European Union and UK is expected to grow to 4.2% from 2.6% by 2025, according to the European Commission.