Change is the new normal, however it’s why so many organizations are reimagining their businesses and migrating systems and applications to the cloud.

And they’re doing it while their industries and business are in flux. It’s akin to a ship rebuilding its engine and retraining its crew, while somehow trying to maintain its speed and course through a ferocious storm, in a recently released report by Accenture.

Titled, Ever-ready for Every Opportunity: How to Unleash Competitiveness on the Cloud Continuum the global survey of about 4000 global business and IT leaders. The survey found about 65 per cent of respondents saw up to 10 per cent in cost savings, on average, from moving to the cloud.

But that’s just one upshot. A small subset of the companies we surveyed—about 12-15 per cent of respondents depending on region—are seeing substantial gains from their continued cloud engagement. They’re benefitting even amidst global disruptions because they recognise the cloud as a launch pad for innovating and new ways of operating.

When organisations build on the cloud’s capabilities, they’ll discover opportunities and options for meeting the ever-changing needs of the business. Organizations working in this Cloud Continuum create a technology foundation that will serve them now and well into the future.

We call these companies Continuum Competitors because they are using the cloud not just as a single, static destination, but as a future operating model.

They’re transforming how they interact with customers, partners and employees; how they make and market their products and services; how they build and operate their IT systems; and they’re reimagining the role of data and compute.

Highlights from the report include:

• Accenture defines organisations leading the way in cloud as “Continuum Competitors.”
• These organisations — about 13 per cent of APAC respondents — stand out by extending the experience they gained from public cloud to their private data centres and edge locations to transform daily business operations. As a result, they achieved substantial gains from their continued cloud engagement and outperformed their competitors.
• Continuum Competitors are much better positioned to withstand future shocks.
• Specifically in APAC, Continuum Competitors are:
• 7 times more likely to innovate, automate and re-engineer knowledge work. More specifically in China, significantly wider benefits of up to 14 times was observed.
• Able to achieve 1.5 times greater cost reduction than organisations focused mainly on data migration.
• Aiming to achieve more for their operational and financial goals. This includes targeting at least 50 per cent more business measures such as increasing customers and going to market faster than their peers.
• Up to 2 times more likely to use cloud for at least sustainability goals. These goals include doing more with less servers, the use of more efficient servers, creating better architecture for greener IT than on-premises, reducing their carbon footprint and using green energy sources for IT.
• 2 times more likely to use cloud to innovate how knowledge work is performed.
• By studying Continuum Competitors, Accenture has identified 4 winning cloud approaches:
• Know where you want the continuum to take you. Developing strategies aligned with the constant evolution of cloud capabilities will help drive organisations further.
• Establish cloud practices to support and augment your technologies. Organisations must couple technology adoption with practices that bring discipline and help change non-technology areas at the pace of computational improvements.
• Accelerate innovation to deliver exceptional experiences. Continuum Competitors prioritise their investments in experience and use a combination of human-centred design and cloud-based technologies to rethink experience for greater engagement.
• Provide continuous strategic commitment. Organisations must recognise the “all-hands” nature of the challenge. Everyone across the organisation needs to be informed of the cloud’s ever-improving potential and best practices.