How Cloud Providers are Failing Midsized Businesses - High Adoption, but Lower Satisfaction than Other Sectors

While the cloud model can be equally attractive to every company size, one sector has been particularly relentless in pursuing a cloud strategy: midmarkets. In the Frost & Sullivan 2019 Global Cloud Survey, midmarket firms are consistently among the highest adopters of services across the cloud stack—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Midsized businesses also use more public cloud providers, on average, than other firms.

Despite the high adoption rates, midsized businesses report greater challenges to achieving their cloud strategies than other sectors. One revelation that should be particularly concerning to public cloud providers is that midmarket firms express significantly lower satisfaction levels with their providers than other sectors.

In this report, we examine the results of the latest Frost & Sullivan Cloud survey, comparing responses from different company sizes. We consider what is driving the midmarket cloud journey—and what is disappointing them once they arrive. Finally, we provide tips for midmarket firms on how to optimize their experience with cloud service providers, and recommendations for cloud service providers to attract and retain this high-opportunity market.