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Telstra has published the “State of Cloud, Edge, and Security in Australia 2023-24” report, based on an extensive Australian market survey and interviews of 170 technology and business leaders including CIOs, CISOs, CEOs, facilitated by analyst firm Omdia.
Now in its third consecutive year, this initiative continues to seek a comprehensive understanding of the realities of cloud computing, edge, and security within mid- and large-sized Australian companies and government bodies.
The State of Cloud, Edge, and Security in Australia 2023-24 report provides insights on:
- Progress in the digital transformation journey of Australian organisations across industries;
- Current and upcoming organisational challenges in their digitisation endeavours;
- Redefining the business case behind cloud migrations, with greater cyber security and network resiliency; and
- How leveraging the right technology partners can help overcome complexity, accelerate time to value, and reduce technology risk.
In the face of mounting challenges, businesses are looking into outsourcing professional services
This year’s survey reveals valuable insights into increased cloud investments, highlighting a concerted effort toward digitisation, application modernisation, and enhanced cyber security. While many organisations have made great strides in transformation, they often settle for Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) benefits. Business leaders cite security, data governance, and customer experience issues as challenges to realising further benefits in cloud. Adding to this is the IT skills gap — especially in data management, hybrid cloud architecture, change management, and AI — a long-standing and pervasive issue that many organisations are still struggling to address.
A well-managed network is of critical importance in an evolving digital landscape, and most Australian business leaders identify network expertise as paramount in their choice of managed cloud service providers. Apart from network management expertise, businesses are also looking into third parties that can help fortify their cyber security postures. Driven by more complex IT infrastructure and slowly growing budgets, leaders tend to favour providers that offer local deep support and capability breadth across the hybrid cloud, edge, and increasingly AI-enabled security platforms.
As critical workloads migrate rapidly to public cloud, preparedness appears challenged
The report reveals an uptick on cloud adoption since the previous year, but so does cyber security incidents faced by organisations as they rapidly bring their mission-critical workloads to the public cloud. Substantial losses have been incurred following breaches, negatively impacting revenue, reputation, and operational stability.
In the face of rising severity and number of cyber threats, cloud security preparedness remains a critical focus area for organisations. The survey uncovers that about 40% of Australian firms feel ‘well-prepared’ for cloud security, clearly highlighting a vulnerable spot for malicious actors to target in the future.
The report concludes with data-backed recommendations to pave a strategic path forward with a redefined business case to address growing market pressures, a proactive security approach, and the right partnerships to navigate complexity and mitigate technology risk.
