Cloud, mobile and big-data adoption boosts business revenues by 50 per cent, claims Dell

Cost of deployment still regarded as a major barrier to adoption by many organisations

Organisations that actively use technologies such as cloud, mobility and big data are expanding faster and experiencing higher revenue growth than those which haven't deployed them.

That's according to Dell's second annual Global Technology Adoption Index (GTAI 2015), which claims that organisations that actively use cloud, mobility and big data have made significant improvements in efficiency and growth metrics, resulting in an average revenue growth of 53 per cent.

Dell released the report shortly after the company confirmed a $67bn deal to acquire storage vendor EMC.

The report also suggests that, despite a claimed link between use of new technologies and revenue growth, cost of adoption is viewed as the main barrier to implementation or expansion of the likes of cloud, big data and mobile technologies.

There are a number of primary barriers which make businesses apprehensive about adopting new technologies. For organisations that aren't yet using big data, not knowing if the benefits are worth the cost, not to mention the cost of new IT infrastructure to support it, are seen as the main barriers to adoption.

Meanwhile, for cloud, cost and security are both viewed as significant barriers to adoption, with 42 per cent of respondents from organisations not using cloud technology stating that they don't trust the security of cloud technology.

They might be right on this, with a recent report suggesting that cloud is now viewed as a 'fruit bearing jackpot' by hackers.

However, despite these concerns, Dell's Global Technology Adoption Index indicates that organisations that embrace cloud, mobility and big data will be better placed in future.

One organisation that has benefited from the adoption of new technologies is Owens & Minor, a Fortune-500 supplier of medical products. "We knew adopting new technologies would help us become more efficient, but we've recognised an even more impressive return on our investment," the reports quotes the company's CIO, Rick Mears.

Not surprisingly, as a vendor of cloud, security and big-data services, Dell welcomed an increase in customers using the technology.

"We're enthused to see more organisations recognizing the strategic importance of technology investments," said Paul Walsh, CIO of Dell. "We believe this new research will help companies see the correlation between technology use and revenue growth, improved efficiencies and organizational growth," he concluded.