California State and Local Government Cloud Survey

We recently conducted an online survey to gain an understanding of the adoption of cloud software for California state and local government entities and then presented the results of the survey last week at the California State Municipal Finance Officers Association show in Monterey. We had 52 municipalities and special districts respond and uncovered some interesting statistics. (It is important to remember that this was not a scientific study).

1. 67% of respondents use at least some application in the cloud. (This could be ERP, HR/Payroll, CRM, Land Management, EAM, etc.)
2. 84% of respondents were at least somewhat interested in implementing a cloud solution in the next few  years.
3. The top 3 topics of interest/concern with the cloud for government agencies:
   1. Security
   2. Advantages/Disadvantages of Cloud Solutions
   3. Budget/Cost Estimates

As we have mentioned in other posts, implementing a Cloud solution is just another software delivery option with advantages and disadvantages. We have found that our government customers have been much slower to adopt the cloud approach to systems than the private sector. In fact, while 67% of respondents were using a cloud solution, most were just using certain modules and were not investing heavily in cloud applications yet. However, it appears that interest may be growing for state and local government, and it will be interesting to see how things evolve over the next few years.