PALO, ALTO, CA–(Marketwired – November 17, 2016) – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced key findings from a cloud study conducted by Vanson Bourne on IT management. The study dove deeper into the topic explored by the recent VMware-sponsored survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and found that 69 percent of respondents to the Vanson Bourne survey agree that the management of IT has become increasingly decentralized in the past three years. Findings also revealed that IT isn’t ready for this transition and it may be causing more harm to businesses than good, specifically around security, with 57 percent of respondents agreeing that decentralization has resulted in the purchasing of non-secure solutions.

Business models are being disrupted and digital transformation is critical in enabling organizations to remain innovative, competitive and agile. Cloud computing has been key to this transformation, but IT is struggling to keep up and so responsibility has shifted away from IT. Lines of business are now purchasing IT ‘as a service’ to drive innovation within their domains. With this decentralization comes both opportunities and challenges. While it could empower all business units to drive innovation and ease pressure on IT, it also creates numerous management, security and compliance issues.

“These survey results reflect that cloud computing is continuing to move technology beyond IT, giving lines of business easy-to-use, flexible IT services to drive innovation within their domains,” said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer, Cloud Services and Products, VMware. “VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™ enables IT to help manage and control multiple clouds across an enterprise, thereby giving lines of businesses the flexibility to innovate in any environment.”

Key findings from the survey include:

Decentralization is occurring; IT isn’t welcoming it

• 69 percent agree that the management of IT has continued to decentralize in the past three years
• 65 percent of IT respondents want IT to be more centralized
• 74 percent believe that the IT department should be responsible for enabling other lines of business to drive innovation

Security is an issue with decentralization

• 57 percent agree decentralization has resulted in the purchasing of non-secure solutions
• 60 percent agree decentralization results in applications being developed outside of corporate or government regulations
• 56 percent agree decentralization results in lack of regulatory compliance of data protection

Other issues as a result of decentralization

• From an IT perspective: 58 percent agree decentralization has created a lack of clear ownership and responsibility for IT
• From a financial perspective:
  • Businesses are seeing an average increase of 5.7 percent on spending on tech / IT as a result of decentralization
  • 61 percent believe decentralization creates a duplication of IT spending across the organization
  • 57 percent believe decentralization creates a lack of awareness of overall IT spending across the business

Key Findings from the survey in EMEA and Asia-Pacific

EMEA

• Six in 10 (60 percent) IT decision maker (ITDM) respondents agree that the IT department has had an active role in the decentralization of IT to other business users’ lines of business
• Yet around the same amount (59 percent) of ITDMs also agree that they want to centralize IT more and reduce the amount of IT purchasing by business users’ lines of business
• The majority of all respondents agree impact of decentralization is making the IT department’s job more challenging (57 percent), while around half (51 percent) agree that it will increase the stress on IT personnel and resources

Asia-Pacific

• Across Asia-Pacific, 78 percent of IT decision makers and line of business leaders agree that cloud computing has made it easier for lines of business to purchase their own IT. This has led to an average of six additional cloud services being purchased outside of the IT department per organization according to respondents.
• Nearly 75 percent of ITDMs in Asia-Pacific agree that decentralization makes IT’s job more challenging. And, 60 percent say decentralization of IT creates a lack of clear ownership and responsibility for IT.
• However, the majority of respondents across Asia-Pacific believe decentralization increases responsiveness to market changes (69 percent), gives the business more freedom to drive innovation (71 percent), enables them to launch new products and services to market more quickly (71 percent) and even helps to attract better talent (68 percent).

Additional Resources

• Read more about the cloud research and how IT decentralization is disrupting business
• Learn more about the “IT Archipelago: Fragmentation Stressing the Enterprise”

About The State of the Cloud 2016

The State of the Cloud 2016 research draws its conclusions from two surveys, both sponsored by VMware.

The first — called The IT Archipelago: Research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit — targeted 726 people distributed equally across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and EMEA. All the respondents were directors or above, from companies with an average revenue of $2.1B, and representing 20 industries. Half of those surveyed were business users and half IT.

The second survey — VMware’s 2016 State of the Cloud: Research conducted by Vanson Bourne in August and September 2016 — targeted 3,300 people from 20 countries split across the Americas (24 percent), Asia-Pacific (39 percent), and EMEA (36 percent). The respondents represented 20 industries with an average company revenue of $3.7B. Half of those surveyed were business users and half IT.

Together, the survey results tell the story of decentralization both disrupting the enterprise and driving innovation.