Manufacturing Cloud Survey: Cloud Adoption Driving Digital Transformation

How are manufacturing companies dealing with digital transformation? And what role do cloud technologies play? A recent cloud survey found that increased use of cloud applications like Propel are helping manufacturers realize much more strategic benefits.

Key Findings

This year’s survey involved over 100 respondents at the Salesforce Manufacturing Summit. Some interesting facts compared to last year’s survey:

  • Cloud adoption is booming. About ⅔ of survey respondents have been using cloud apps for over 5 years — a 2x increase from 2016. Similarly, approximately ½ of respondents used 5 or more enterprise cloud apps — also a 2x increase from 2016.
  • Engineering is on the rise. Almost ⅓ of survey respondents said that their engineers were using enterprise cloud apps, the highest yearly increase among all departments. Last year, only 25% said that their engineers were using enterprise cloud apps — among the lowest adoption across all departments.
  • Cloud benefits are now more strategic. Reducing IT costs remained important in 2017 (according to 62% of respondents). But the more strategic benefits of higher productivity (72%) and business agility (60%) dramatically rose to be among the top cloud benefits in 2017.
  • Integration is the top cloud concern. In 2017, integration remained the top challenge with cloud apps (according to 51% of respondents). Last year, survey respondents reported security as a low concern, but it rose significantly in 2017.

Download the infographic summary of this survey.

What’s interesting is that even as recently as five years ago, manufacturing companies were still hesitant about adopting cloud technologies. Fast forward to 2017, and manufacturers now see SaaS as a core component of their digital transformation and customer engagement strategy. This latest survey shows that manufacturing companies are now embracing cloud technologies like Propel to better engage customers throughout the product lifecycle and achieve significant business benefits.

I can’t wait to see what 2018 brings! To find out more about Propel, visit propelPLM.com.

Propel

Propel’s latest thoughts on product success, innovation, and cloud technology. Visit propelPLM.com for more information.

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Buzz the Propellerhead

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Driving Product Success

Propel

Propel

Propel’s latest thoughts on product success, innovation, and cloud technology. Visit propelPLM.com for more information.

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