Enterprises in Switzerland flocking to the public cloud, according to new report

Spending on public cloud services by enterprises in Switzerland is growing faster than it is globally, with Swiss companies moving several types of workloads to the cloud, according to a new report published by Information Services Group (ISG), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2019 ISG Provider Lens™ Public Cloud – Solutions & Service Partners Report for Switzerland notes public cloud spending in the country grew by more than 20 percent year over year in the second quarter, compared to global growth of 14 percent. It states that Swiss enterprises are pushing customer relationship management (CRM), unified communications and, increasingly, enterprise resource planning (ERP) workloads to the cloud.

A growing use of PaaS-related technologies by the local developer community is driving enterprise interest in the cloud. In addition, an increasing volume of data generated by customers and other sources is pushing Swiss businesses to consider the public cloud.

“Swiss companies are engaged in a variety of digital initiatives, which drives cloud spending,” said Andrea Spiegelhoff, partner, ISG DACH. “The volume of data they receive from digital sources such as the IoT is growing rapidly, and analytic tools available in the cloud are helping them make sense of this data.”

The report also finds Swiss companies focused more on data center location, managed services support and contract flexibility when looking for cloud providers, rather than the portfolio of features offered. Swiss enterprises are paying close attention to European data protection laws that mandate local storage of some data, the report notes.

Responding to this need, Microsoft and Google recently decided to provide public cloud services from Switzerland, and AWS may soon follow, the report says.

Enterprises in Switzerland are also focused on cost savings and optimization as they explore public cloud services, the report adds. Many companies are embracing a multi-cloud strategy, but they are finding it difficult to manage their spending because of the complexity of the cloud ecosystem. These enterprises are looking for cost management tools from service providers.

The trend in Switzerland toward using multiple public cloud providers is forcing some providers to specialize in one platform or hyperscale provider as a way to meet individual customer requirements.

The Swiss cloud market is also seeing major changes in the managed services partner ecosystem, with more service providers entering the market, the report says. Some smaller providers are being merged into larger system integrators, as a way to eliminate the competition or acquire niche capabilities.

The report is available to ISG Insights™ subscribers or for one-time purchase here.