Cloud technologies are changing the way businesses are run and how employees work. However, most resources used nowadays are still on premises. Perhaps, more businesses would be encouraged to move their IT resources to the cloud if they know what those who have started their own cloud journeys have learned.

Oracle asked more than 7,000 IT professionals holding senior positions in the world’s top companies from different industries.

Here is what they found out.

More than half of the people they asked said they have seen improvements in application performance, as well as reported better-than-expected integration of cloud apps with onsite applications. They also said that application oversight and governance is now possible and security is a breeze. More than that, they also enjoy more deployment models for their data.

What else did Oracle find?

Eight out of ten respondents said that they could now experiment more with their data models.

Around the same number said that they now get deeper insights, allowing them to develop their businesses better, and identify and capture opportunities. For these companies, security and updates are easier as well.

Furthermore, more than six out of every 10 respondents said that when they moved their testing and development processes to the cloud, they were able to speed up their innovations. Plus, it allowed them to be more competitive when they connect and extend applications. More than half of these IT professionals also indicated that platform as a service made their journey to the cloud a whole lot easier.

In the area of data analytics, a lot of these companies reported that they are now able to generate and capture insights that were not available to them before. These are insights that they use for business transformations. On top of that, cloud-based applications are faster and more responsive than their onsite counterparts. Delaying your move to the cloud will only hurt your company. Not only are you not getting the business insights you need to grow your business, but you will also need to play catch up to your competitors who have moved to the cloud early on.

But what about security?

You may have heard about the cloud opening your entire IT infrastructure to more risks from cyber attacks, vulnerabilities, or hacking attempts. Not so, according to those who are now on the cloud. In fact, they said that the cloud makes them feel more at ease and confident about their data and overall system security. They think that they are now more able to detect threats and are more secure. They can also put plans to prevent cyber attacks from happening with the cloud – much better.

In a nutshell, here are the 10 lessons learned

1. Companies are not concerned they are going to move to the cloud; that is already inevitable if you want to remain competitive. The question now is how they’d move to the cloud.
2. You need to get the skills to succeed on the cloud.
3. The cloud can help you satisfy your customers with a quick time to market.
4. Identify a good starting point for an effective migration.
5. The cloud allows you to experiment with data models and gain better insights.
6. The benefits of the cloud: innovation and competitiveness.
7. What drives people to migrate are lower costs.
8. Cloud gets better business insights and helps you discover new opportunities.
9. The safest place to store your data is on the cloud.
10. You can use the same tools that you use for security to monitor your applications’ performance.

Photo courtesy of FutUndBeidl (Flickr).