Economic uncertainty is driving a reduction in corporate spending, but the need for innovation and increased revenues remains high—and the cloud represents an engine of innovation. The Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report sheds light on the pressures facing IT professionals and the strategic initiatives they’re utilizing to remain competitive in today’s dynamic and evolving landscape.
Report highlights
Here’s a sample of key findings from this year’s report based on a survey of 750 cloud decision-makers and users from around the world. Scroll to find out more.
Organizations embrace multi-cloud
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
Public vs. private cloud usage
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
What public cloud providers does your organization use?
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
Public cloud services used for all organizations
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
How is economic uncertainty changing your expected cloud usage and spend?
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
What are your organization’s top cloud challenges?
All respondents: N=750, Enterprise: N=627, SMB: N=123
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
Seeking to control stubbornly high cloud costs, many organizations have or plan to create a cloud center of excellence (CCOE) and build mature FinOps practices. Nearly half of survey respondents indicated their organization plans to move from on-premises software to SaaS, and there’s a small but growing subset of businesses that have moved to just a single cloud provider. AWS and Azure continue to lead the pack of cloud providers, further widening the gap with competitors while maintaining a neck-and-neck competition as market leaders.
You can’t innovate in a digital world without the cloud. Although the threat of economic volatility hasn’t slowed cloud adoption or spending, respondents indicate an acute awareness of costs, as indicated by their prioritization of cost control efforts over security for the first time in a decade. Other means of innovation remain top of mind, with nearly half of respondents experimenting with or planning to use machine learning or artificial intelligence.
The Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report reveals:
Methodology
The survey tapped 750 IT professionals and executive leaders worldwide representing a broad cross-section of industries and context areas in the winter of 2022.
Flexera sources participants from an independent panel that is rigorously maintained and is comprised of vetted respondents with detailed profiles.
At numerous points throughout the report, we’ve provided our own interpretation of the data as Flexera Points of View.
SMBs: Businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees
Enterprises: Organizations with 1,000+ employees
Large enterprises: Organizations with 10,000+ employees
Reuse
We encourage the reuse of data, charts and text published in this report under the terms of this Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You’re free to share and make commercial use of this work as long as you attribute the Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report as stipulated in terms of the license.
This year’s survey leans toward larger enterprises, with 67% of respondents in organizations with more than 2,000 employees. Eleven percent have more than 100,000 employees, which is a new category this year.
What size is your organization?
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
More than two-thirds of respondents come from organizations with 2,000 or more employees
Tech-related industries (32%) and financial services (20%) lead the pack, followed by healthcare.
What’s your company’s industry?
N=750
Source: Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report
