Cloud value? Not without the business

Cloud strategy is complex and can fail to achieve return on investment without alignment to business outcomes. Stronger, more deliberate collaboration between technology and business stakeholders can enable value realization. We explore three patterns of cloud adoption.

Cloud is becoming more mature. As banks race to experiment with AI, it has expanded the aperture for what’s possible, driving the next horizon of investments in cloud technologies. A recent Deloitte survey of over 300 US banking and capital markets leaders uncovered 75% of banks are either increasing or significantly increasing their investment spend¹. In Canada, the financial services industry outpaces all industries in cloud consumption, with nearly 80% of respondents to a Deloitte Canada survey of over 200 cloud decision-makers² having shifted at least 40% of their data to the cloud. The priority and focus has shifted from enabling technology to delivering value at the heart of the business—unlocking organizational agility, accelerating time to market, and enabling innovation.

For many, the reality doesn't meet expectations: investments are split across different departments, many find it hard to handle the complexity of using multiple cloud systems, and some have not yet aligned their technology choices with business goals. While not surprising, this issue persists due to low-risk tolerance, largely shaped by regulatory constraints in the banking sector. While the demand in the financial services industry for exponential tech capabilities is among the highest compared to other industries – banks are not keeping up.

A moderate pace to cloud adoption guided by risk concerns and the need for high-fidelity and high-security tech may have been reasonable in the past, but if organizations are to advance beyond this plateau and realize value in this unique moment in the market – a dramatically different approach to cloud adoption across a hybrid AI infrastructure strategy is needed. We explore recommendations for how technology and business leaders can chart a course together in a market that is fast maturing, to avoid being left behind.

Download the article to learn more about the patterns of cloud adoption.

¹Deloitte, “2025 banking and capital markets outlook”, October 2024
²Deloitte, “Cresting the cloud horizon”, April 2024