This month, IDC released the second annual Enterprise Cloud Study. Focusing on large Canadian organizations’ businesses and IT leaders, the study showed that cloud technology is essential for businesses striving to improve their customer service, increase productivity and save money.

Companies who have adopted the cloud first mindset are 25% more likely to be opened to new technologies and are considered more innovative, progressive and better suited for outperforming their peers according to the study, which was commissioned by Telus.

“The survey indicates that the number one priority for Canadian businesses is improving customer service. IT leaders are realizing that moving IT functions to the cloud can have a real impact on their bottom line and can help them focus on their core business, including their customers,” says Tony Krueck, vice-president, Business Solutions Marketing at Telus. “Those who have made the move are now reaping the benefits of cloud. The IDC survey found that an impressive 81% of Canadian businesses reported lowering the cost of IT due to cloud adoption.”

Many IDC experts foresee cloud as being a conventional technology in the coming years, estimating in Canada, cloud service will increase by a third and surpass $1 billion by 2014. At this transitional juncture, IDC believes that businesses will only have a short amount of time to become knowledgeable and expand their strategy to include cloud. Otherwise they might not be able to keep up.

Currently 55% of large Canadian businesses have third-party hosting services with almost 31% of organizations with both cloud and hosting. Organizations that utilized these services are better equipped when overcoming data security, compliance and data residency concerns.

“If we look at the results from the 2012 Telus IDC cloud survey, the number one reason Canadian enterprises are fearful to step outside of their traditional IT comfort zone is risk,” says Mark Schrutt, IDC Canada’s director of services and enterprise applications. “The good news is that this year, the majority of users said they were able to easily overcome these challenges and that cloud actually was a catalyst for improving data security.”

A majority of Canadian businesses have relatable priorities: 23% said they wanted to provide better customer experience, 15% wanted to improve productivity, 13% wanted to be more cost efficient and 12% wanted to attract and retain skilled workers. By having a cloud first mentality companies are able to support these growing expectations by staying up to date with technology and functionality, by sourcing IT resources, skills and capabilities with greater ease and by allowing the business to be more agile.

“The future of cloud looks bright for Canadian business. The IDC white paper states that over the next four years cloud will grow by 25% and hosting by 9.6% compared to a growth rate of 3.5% for the rest of the Canadian IT market,” added Krueck. “Now is the time for businesses to develop expertise with these IT sourcing options to realize a competitive advantage.”