Nutanix sees retailers adopt hybrid cloud faster than other industries

Enterprise cloud computing firm Nutanix has said that enterprise workloads in traditional data centres will decrease as companies accelerate their cloud journey, the company found in a survey it released on Thursday.

The workloads will drop to 18% in two years as compared to 41% today, the firm stated in its Enterprise Cloud Index report.

Nutanix further said that enterprises are moving towards a hybrid and multi-cloud strategy due to increasing customer expectations, digital transformation initiatives and data security requirements.

Around 90% of those surveyed preferred a hybrid cloud strategy, and hence, the ability to move data and applications seamlessly across multi-cloud platforms has become an important factor in choosing such a solution, the report said. More than 2,300 information technology (IT) decision makers in large enterprises were surveyed last year for the study.

“The bullish outlook for hybrid cloud adoption globally and across industries is reflective of an IT landscape growing increasingly automated and flexible enough that enterprises have the choice to buy, build or rent their IT infrastructure resources based on application requirements," said Neville Vincent, vice president for ASEAN, India and Oceania at Nutanix.

Without specifying which segment leads in implementing the hybrid cloud model, Nutanix said that retail was the second most active industry to adopt the technology. According to the report, in order to meet the customer expectation of a seamless omnichannel shopping experience, retailers need to gather, analyse and keep data secure. This pressure is forcing retailers to deploy innovative IT practices faster than ever.

Today, retailers have adopted 15% of public cloud as against the global average of 12%, and their usage is expected to grow up to 22% in the next two years, Nutanix said. Out of the 2,300 companies surveyed by Nutanix, 329 were from the retail industry, the company said.

However, a higher than average percentage of retailers said that hybrid cloud is the ideal IT deployment model (93%), indicating that they would move to the model sooner than later, the report assessed.

"For retailers, having the flexibility to choose the right cloud for each application appeared most often as the benefit for deploying hybrid cloud. Given there are periods of high traffic loads and the seasonality of business and variance of IT and network consumption needs throughout the year, retailers understand the need to keep IT flexible," the report said.

Nutanix said that 35% of organisations end up overspending while using public clouds and was among the reasons they want to move to a hybrid model. While IT talent and security are barriers to hybrid cloud adoption, cost topped the list, it added.

“Indian retailers are racing to redesign their IT infrastructure as they seek to redefine their businesses. Customer service is now giving way to customer experience and it is technology (hybrid solutions) that is driving the change. Infrastructure design has become a critical aspect of maximising the value of data and the customer journey," Vincent said, adding that traditional hardware was not fit for purpose.