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State of the Cloud 2024 - Small Businesses

Publisher Frost & Sullivan
Published May 29, 2025
SKU # MC20057115

Description

Small businesses (10-99 employees) perceive the cloud as essential to success. While they lag behind larger enterprises in technology adoption, they plan to invest in technologies such as AI/ML, cloud, and automation to achieve their business goals. In the 2024 Frost & Sullivan Global Cloud Decision-Maker survey, small business respondents shared their perceptions, purchase decisions, and plans related to cloud, IT, and AI. Key findings include:

• AI is considered a strategic investment to help achieve business goals. Top drivers for AI investments include improving operations, enhancing the employee experience, and boosting innovation.

• The percentage of small businesses using public and multi-cloud infrastructure will double by 2026; the percentage using hybrid cloud will triple. At the same time, small businesses plan to retain infrastructure on-premises, primarily to support legacy applications.

• Small businesses turn to managed service providers (MSPs) to fill expertise gaps, especially in application development, data migration, and data management.

This report offers small businesses and IT service providers a glimpse of the near future for the cloud and AI markets.

Table of Contents

    • Respondent Profile - Small Businesses
  • Key Findings
    • Small Businesses Prioritize Growing Revenue & AI Adoption
    • Hybrid and Multi-cloud are Essential For Business Success
    • Small Businesses Explore all Cloud Types
    • Top Reasons for Deploying Apps in the Public Cloud
    • Security and Costs Pose Challenges
    • On-Premises Data Center Use Trend Among Small Businesses
    • Small Business Employees Prefer the Familiarity of On-Premises Solutions
    • Migrating Workloads to the Cloud
    • Modernization Approaches for Legacy Workloads
    • Third-Party Services to Support Small Business Cloud Strategies
    • Quick Delivery, Efficient Workload Management Top MSP Benefits
    • Small Businesses Begin their AI Journeys
    • AI Supports Better Operations & Talent Management
    • Small Businesses Deploy Apps Integrated with GenAI
    • Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine™
    • Why is it Increasingly Difficult to Grow?
    • The Strategic Imperative 8™
    • Benefits and Impacts of Growth Opportunities
    • Next Steps

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