An Unisys report based on a survey of 1,000 C-suite and technology executives across eight global markets finds a widening gap between business and IT views on cloud, infrastructure and security. Organizations intend to increase cloud spending despite disappointing returns over the past year. Fewer than half of roughly 300 business executives said they were satisfied with return on investment for cloud, generative Artificial Intelligence and automation, yet more than three quarters of respondents said they plan to increase cloud investments this year.
The survey highlights a perception split between business leaders and IT teams that is hindering progress toward ROI. More than two in five business executives believe their organizations have made significant progress with Artificial Intelligence pilots and prototypes, compared with less than one third of the roughly 700 IT leaders surveyed. IT executives expressed concern about supporting technologies: more than two in five IT leaders said their companies´ current infrastructure is not fully capable of running Artificial Intelligence workloads.
The disconnect is especially stark on security. Nearly two thirds of business executives said outdated or rigid security infrastructure blocks the sharing and analysis of data, while only a little more than one third of IT leaders agreed. Business executives were also nearly twice as likely to cite cloud security policies as a drag on innovation. Despite those differences, Unisys found near-universal reliance on reactive incident response: nearly nine in ten respondents said their organizations respond to incidents when they occur but lack a proactive prevention strategy. The report flags real costs to that approach, noting IT outages can cost up to half a million dollars per hour of unplanned downtime for more than two in five organizations. Manju Naglapur, senior vice president and general manager of cloud, applications and infrastructure solutions at Unisys, warned that many organizations are operating on outdated foundations and must modernize infrastructure, align IT and business priorities and adopt a more proactive approach to cybersecurity.
