Canopy , the Atos cloud powered by EMC and VMware, is trying to stoke up business through a survey saying what many CFOs already know: they are missing business opportunities by not having the right cloud apps and infrastructure in place. It does beg the questions as to how cloud investment is to be funded, even if some sort of return on investment can be calculated.

The survey says 75% of CFOs think their business is missing out on revenue opportunities by not having the right cloud applications and infrastructure in place to support digital business transformation. And as a result, 70% of CIOs and CFOs fear their business will become uncompetitive with the majority (76%) of them estimating this will happen as fast as the end of 2015.

CFOs estimated that if enhanced cloud capabilities were in place in their company, double digit growth could be achieved in 2015 with an average €123m revenue boost. Canopy's research conducted by Vanson Bourne, surveyed 950 CIOs, CFOs and business decision makers (BDMs) in mid-market and enterprise firms in the UK, US, Germany, France and the Netherlands. The findings show that digital transformation is touching all aspects of organizations from customer service, sales and business development through to innovation, product development and talent attraction.

Over a third of CIOs admitted that if the IT department wasn't able to modernize company IT effectively in the next 12 months then it would lead to reduced staff productivity (38%), increased time to market (34%) reduced ability to service customers in new ways (33%), a risk of data theft occurring (35%) and limited their company's ability to launch new products and services (35%).

Jacques Pommeraud, CEO of, Canopy said: "In our business we find that our most innovative customers have achieved a sharp gain in agility and the ability to refocus resources away from internal IT and towards growth. While "digital" is a widespread term today, right now digital transformation is only happening in pockets and is proving elusive for many global enterprises.”

"Trust is one of the most critical factors that customers are demanding from service providers - they need peace of mind that their customer and employee data is held in a safe, secure environment. Our industry must help enterprises overcome the barriers they face especially given the critical role cloud technologies play in driving topline revenue growth, innovation and talent attraction."

While the overwhelming majority (90%) recognized the need to embrace cloud based applications and infrastructure to deliver digital transformation, almost two thirds (64%) admitted that a lack of cloud investment was holding back vital digital initiatives.

Despite the maturity of cloud technology the research showed many barriers to adoption remain. Around half of business decision makers agreed factors such as security (50%) and data protection concerns (44%) were hindering cloud investment while a quarter stated protection of intellectual property (24%) and fears of vendor lock-in (23%) were additional contributing factors.