A new IBM survey with participation from 380 CIOs and CTOs from mid-sized and large companies in the United States and United Kingdom reveals that many corporate IT leaders and their organizations are not prepared for the future IT needs of the business and nearly all are moving to advance their transition to cloud infrastructure.

Of the 380 leaders participated in the survey, 60 percent asserted that their company's IT modernization program is not yet ready for the future. Nearly a quarter of CIOs and CTOs (24 percent) surveyed said that their company is just starting its IT modernization journey or has yet to begin modernizing, with about a third surveyed saying they are still in the midst of transformation. More than 95 percent said that they are looking to adopt public, hybrid or private cloud strategies. Of those, many are moving at an aggressive pace as well. The study reveals that 53 percent of respondents are aggressively pursuing a public cloud strategy, 48 percent a hybrid cloud strategy, and 45 percent a private cloud strategy.

“Our clients are looking to accelerate IT modernization by leveraging cloud models - both public and hybrid, data, AI, automation and other key technologies to help shape, scale and manage more effectively massive, complex, global architectures,” said Archana Vemulapalli, General Manager, IBM Infrastructure Services - Offerings and CTO. “In this rapidly changing digital business environment, organizations can bring in the right technology and the right partners to help aggregate, integrate, build and maintain a scalable digital business, while also enforcing effective governance.”

According to the survey, more than 60 percent of technology leaders surveyed say they expect increased demand for cloud infrastructure to be permanent. In addition, around 40 percent of survey respondents do not feel their teams have the right skills to fully meet their IT ambitions, and more than three in four surveyed say they will rely more on trusted partners that can provide managed infrastructure services.

On the other hand, most CIOs and CTOs (67 percent) surveyed cite the need for increased infrastructure flexibility as driving the digital transformation, followed by the need for competitive advantage (61 percent), cost savings (58 percent), increasing globalization (54 percent) and meeting client demands (45 percent).

While the majority (60 percent) of CIOs and CTOs surveyed say their company's IT modernization is not yet ready for the future, the study revealed significant differences in the U.S. and U.K. markets. While approximately 56 percent of U.S. respondents say they are aggressively moving their IT infrastructure to hybrid cloud, only 38 percent of respondents in the U.K. describe their approach as aggressive. And while 56 percent of CIOs/CTOs surveyed in the U.S. say their IT infrastructures were completely prepared for the business changes brought on by COVID-19, only 23 percent of U.K. managers surveyed felt as prepared.