Despite being one of the most highly regulated industries, UK Financial Services organisations could be taking risks by circumventing the IT team when it comes to public cloud deployments across the business, a new study from EMC, VCE and VMware today reveals. Of the 600 Line of Businesses (LOB) surveyed across the UK, some 44 percent of those in financial services admitted to bypassing the IT department when purchasing public cloud services.  

The research also reveals the high level of public cloud adoption by LOBs in the Financial Services sector; the overwhelming majority (92 percent) of UK Financial Services LOBs say they use some form of public cloud, whether validated by IT or not, with factors driving adoption ranging from affordability (41percent cited it was a cheaper solution), ease of use (34 percent) and wanting to meet client needs (30 percent).

These findings illustrate how LOBs are taking advantage of the benefits that public cloud facilitates by enabling new product or service lines, evolving and automating the supply chain to drive efficiency, allowing modern working practices and transforming the customer service or go-to-market model for the business.

“The research highlights why the scale of public cloud adoption, without consultation with the IT department, should cause concern for the industry,” comments Nigel Moulton, Chief Technology Officer, EMEA at VCE. “As employees look to deploy cloud services that circumnavigate the IT department, IT organisations need to have a strategy that gives easier access to cloud services in a controlled, compliant manner.”

In order to meet these customer needs in an increasingly competitive and disruptive market, the study highlights the pressure IT is under to deliver value to the business, at pace. IT departments need to embrace a hybrid cloud strategy that can provide portability of workloads in a flexible, agile fashion.

“With an enterprise hybrid cloud strategy in place, line of businesses can focus on their business interests, while gaining immediate and easy to access, secure resources and the benefits hybrid clouds provide,” explains Rob Lamb, Cloud Business Director, UK and Ireland, EMC. “As a result, IT and businesses can embrace the public cloud with confidence, in a secure and manageable way.”

For more information on how Hybrid Cloud can deliver the flexibility and agility of public cloud, without compromising safety and compliance regulations please visit: http://uk.emc.com/cloud/hybrid-cloud-computing/industry-research/index.htm