An IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Dassault Systèmes

Accelerate Business Value

by Moving to the Cloud
RESEARCH BY:

Frank Della Rosa

Research Director,
SaaS and Cloud Software, IDC

August 2021 | IDC Doc. #US48113221

 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Navigating this InfoBrief

Click on titles or page numbers to navigate to each section.

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Cloud Is the Platform for Collaborative

Product Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Cloud Adoption Accelerates
Across Industries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Current Importance of Cloud-Enabled
Digital Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Operational Challenges Drive the
Importance of Cloud-Enabled Digital
Cloud Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Technologies in Near Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Software as a Service Improves Collaboration Cumulative Benefits of the Journey to Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . 12
and Accelerates Time to Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Creating Business Value with the
Rapid Cycles of Change and Innovation Move to Cloud: Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Raise Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
About the Analyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Explosion of Data Produces Opportunities
and Increased Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Message from the Sponsor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Executive Summary
The global pandemic has forever changed the operational reality for businesses in every industry and
geography. This InfoBrief highlights how businesses are responding to the opportunities and challenges
created by the virtuous circle of change and innovation.

A virtuous circle A lack of Businesses need Digital Cloud platforms

of change and collaboration and secure access to transformation infused
innovation creates communication more data sources changes how with digital
urgent demand for can stifle to support design people interact technologies,
innovation. and manufacturing with each other to including machine
greater speed and
processes. efficiently deliver learning and
agility across entire
a continuous flow
supply and value analytics, improve
of innovative
chains. collaboration and
products.
enable secure data
sharing across
distributed teams.

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Cloud Adoption Accelerates Across Industries

Software as a service (SaaS) and cloud software provide a distributed workforce with remote, on-demand
access to IT resources.

Currently Use Cloud

We were able to
quickly get up to speed on
MANUFACTURING LIFE SCIENCES HEALTHCARE RETAIL a cloud-enabled solution
88% 92% 95% 87% that gave access to remote
Source: IDC’s Industry CloudPath 2021 users and all the cloud
features without us having
to do anything.
Please rate the importance of
cloud computing and SaaS
79%
Very important and important
SMALL-TO-MIDSIZE
MANUFACTURER
Source: IDC’s Product and Service Innovation Survey, May 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Operational Challenges Drive the Cloud Decision

Cloud provides the agility and resiliency to support current requirements and future outcomes, especially
those related to digital transformation.
Which of the following “trigger events” have been
most important in leading you to use cloud services?
36% 34% 34% 34% 32% 30% Cloud infrastructure
providers maintain the
Data has grown Need Support digital Keep up with Software Remote highest standards of security
beyond the
capacity
functionality
only found in
transformation compliance
across regions
applications at
end of life
workforce
and compliance, including
of our existing
systems
cloud offerings
EU ISO/IEC 27001, data
sovereignty, and GDPR.
While in the evaluation process, which of the following We could never keep up with
benefits did you expect to achieve from the move changing standards.
to cloud?
Improve customer experience (CX). . . . . . 34%
Give business units more direct
control over sourcing IT solutions. . . . . . . 34%
Improve IT security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34%
Improve IT staff productivity and/or
reduce staff size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34% ENGINEERING
Help drive innovation and/or digital
transformation in the business . . . . . . . . 32% DESIGN FIRM

Source: IDC’s Industry CloudPath 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Software as a Service Improves Collaboration

and Accelerates Time to Value
What are the top 5 drivers of increased
SaaS investment?
Rate on a scale from 0–7 where 0 is extremely unimportant and 7 is extremely important.

With SaaS,
we don’t worry about
SQL backups and
managing server updates.
It’s all done behind
5.21 5.18 5.15 5.14 5.13 the scenes.
Support Ease and Guaranteed Improved features Accelerate
for remote speed of service with SaaS innovation in
employees/users deployment levels applications our company

Please describe your organization’s current or near-term

plans for deploying SaaS. ENGINEERING
DESIGN FIRM
80%
CONSISTENT FINDINGS ACROSS
INDUSTRIES AND COMPANY SIZE

Currently use or have firm plans to implement SaaS.

n = 2,135 | Source: IDC’s SaaSPath 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Rapid Cycles of Change and Innovation

Raise Expectations
From small business to enterprise, cloud-enabled data management
and analytics are fundamental to delivering actionable insights for
decision making.
The advantage
How important are each of the following INDUSTRY VIEW of cloud platforms is we’re
innovative technologies using data that somebody is
in your decision to working on as you’re marking it
move to cloud? up and discussing it in real time.
AVERAGE ACROSS MANUFACTURING LIFE SCIENCES RETAIL HEALTHCARE DISTRIBUTION

You’re not talking about

INDUSTRIES

Artificial intelligence (AI)

and machine learning
66% 72% 63% 74% 66% 60%
a screenshot or something
in PowerPoint.
Advanced and 66% 72% 60% 70% 63% 70%
predictive analytics

Internet of Things (IoT) 65% 72% 53% 68% 55% 68%

SMALL-TO-MIDSIZE
Top 2 scores: very important and important | n = 2,021 | Source: IDC’s Industry CloudPath 2021 MANUFACTURER

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Explosion of Data Produces Opportunities

and Increased Risk
The secure storage, movement, and sharing of sensitive information is a top
priority and driver for cloud adoption. More than one-quarter of businesses
experienced a breach before moving to cloud for increased data protection. We were using
a third-party file sharing
Which of the following “trigger events” have been service. When the pandemic hit,
people had to work from home.
most important in leading you With more usage, we
We design
to use cloud services? sophisticated experienced corrupt
AVERAGE ACROSS INDUSTRIES AND COMPANY SIZE
cloud-enabled products, and files and had
customers trust that we’ll take to scramble to find the
care of their data. How does it look files on a local drive.
if I’m reluctant to do that with my
own business? If we’re locked into
these desktop solutions, what
does that make me
37% 26% look like?
ENGINEERING
FIRM
Data exceeds the Data
capacity of our breach
existing systems

ENGINEERING
n = 2,021 | Source: IDC’s Industry CloudPath 2021
FIRM

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Cloud Is the Platform for Collaborative

Product Development
Company size, growth trajectory, and velocity of change contribute to faster cloud adoption. Small and
medium-sized businesses (SMBs) increasingly adopt cloud and digital technologies for better collaboration
and faster data-driven decisioning.
What elements of product life-cycle management (PLM) do you
currently deploy or plan to deploy in cloud?
The cloud offers the following benefits:
Overall Fewer than 100 employees

Scale effortlessly
Quality management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39% 26%
Collaborate in real time
Product life-cycle analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32% 23%
Accelerate product innovation
Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) . . . . . . . 31% 17%
Improve document and workflow management
Computer-aided design (CAD). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31% 20%
Gain 360-degree visibility into supply
Product portfolio management (PPM) . . . . . . . . 31% 17% and demand risk
Part or material sourcing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28% 16% Leverage AI and analytics to achieve
Collaborative product
data management cPDM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29% 19%
desired outcomes

Supplier collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26% 32%

n = 808 | Source: IDC’s Product and Service Innovation Survey, 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Current Importance of Cloud-Enabled

Digital Technologies
What is the current importance of each of the following technology areas
for your product and service innovation?
Rate using a 5-point scale where 1 is not at all important and 5 is very important.

Fewer than 100 employees 100 to 499 employees 500 to 999 employees More than 1,000 employees

Cloud computing/
software as a service (SaaS) 3.72 3.87 4.03 4.32 More of the products
we design today
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Big data/analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.66 3.93 4.06 4.19

are cloud-based and
Digital twins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.17 3.85 3.91 4.02
include some kind of
Generative design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.50 3.97 4.09 4.10 IoT functionality.
Social business/collaboration tools . . . . . . . 3.58 4.00 3.98 4.14

Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.18 3.95 3.99 4.20

3D printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.86 3.73 3.84 3.93

Internet of things (IoT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.31 4.09 4.15 4.27 ENGINEERING

DESIGN FIRM
Computer-aided engineering (CAE). . . . . . . 3.46 3.86 3.93 4.05

n = 808 | Source: IDC’s Product and Service Innovation Survey, 2021

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Importance of Cloud-Enabled Digital

Technologies in Near Future
new technology areas for your product
What is the importance of each of the following
and service innovation efforts over the next 12 to 24 months?
Rate using a 5-point scale where 1 is not at all important and 5 is very important.

Fewer than 100 employees 100 to 499 employees 500 to 999 employees More than 1,000 employees

Cloud computing/
software as a service (SaaS) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.38 3.80 3.92 3.97

Big data/analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.96 3.78 3.91 4.05

Digital twins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.50 3.90 4.03 4.19

Generative design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.70 3.84 3.94 4.04

Social business/collaboration tools . . . . . . . 2.92 3.75 3.82 3.93

Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.32 3.77 3.90 4.01

3D printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.64 4.05 4.08 4.19

Internet of things (IoT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.57 4.02 4.03 4.15

Computer-aided engineering (CAE). . . . . . . 3.24 3.96 4.00 4.05

n = 808 | IDC’s Product and Service Innovation Survey, 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Cumulative Benefits of
the Journey to Cloud We were up and running
very quickly. The move to a cloud
platform prepares us for the future.
Where have you seen the greatest We can scale for future growth.
Cloud keeps the distributed team
benefits in your cloud journey? fully connected.

35% 34% 31% ENGINEERING

Improved Improved customer Helped drive innovation and/ FIRM In meetings, we can fire up the
IT security experience (CX) or digital transformation browser on any device and bring
up designs. We were surprised at
how handy it is to be able to do
this from anywhere.

30% 28% 27% 25%

Improved business Reduced the total Received access to the Improved time to market and/or
agility and resiliency size of IT budget newest functionality faster expanded into new market segments ENGINEERING
FIRM
n = 424 | Source: IDC’s Industry CloudPath 2021

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Creating Business Value with the Move to Cloud:

Next Steps
1. Examine the company’s
vision and value proposition in
the context of new cloud-enabled
capabilities.

2. Develop a comprehensive 3. Create a framework

business case that defines the to guide the migration process.
near-term operational benefits and The framework specifies the
longer-term aspirational goals for the resources and workloads to be
move to cloud. moved and in what sequence.

4. Determine the impact on 5. Identify and address skills

people and productivity. Inform
gaps to manifest productivity
people of the change and the
improvements made possible
impact on processes, workflows,
by the move to cloud.
and jobs to be done.

6. Capitalize on the positive 7. Cultivate a continuous

impact on business value improvement culture
that results from data-driven to take advantage of new
collaboration. digital technologies.

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

About the Analyst

Frank Della Rosa

Research Director,
SaaS and Cloud Software, IDC

Frank’s core research focus provides in-depth analysis, strategy, and guidance to both
technology suppliers, and mid-market and enterprise buyers on various aspects of cloud
computing, including hybrid cloud and multicloud adoption, strategy, buyer behavior, and
trends across vertical markets, business application categories, and geographies. Frank
also provides analysis on ISVs’ journey to SaaS, enterprise adoption, SaaS management,
cloud maturity, market forecasts, supplier market shares, and cloud marketplaces. In
addition to these topics, planned research will cover the proliferation of SaaS platforms,
changing buyer demographics, and SaaS-embedded innovation accelerators like AI,
machine learning, and extended reality. Based on his extensive experience in buyer
personas, Frank also includes an emphasis on the broadening impact of SaaS and cloud
services on IT and line-of-business buyer behavior.

More about Frank Della Rosa

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 Accelerate Business Value by Moving to the Cloud

Message from the Sponsor

The 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio from SOLIDWORKS brings all your key stakeholders
together on a single collaborative cloud platform, allowing you to seamlessly move from
ideation through delivery for continuous development. Connecting the people, applications
and real-time data from every aspect of your business helps you improve execution, increase
productivity and accelerate innovation.

Learn more about 3DEXPERIENCE Works Cloud Solutions

-

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