Appendix: Research approach

Qualitative interviews

To enrich insights, we conducted phone interviews with more than 50 industry practitioners, executives, and subject matter experts.

Quantitative survey

Respondents by region

Source: Infosys Knowledge Institute

Respondents by industry

Quantifying unused cloud commitments

The unrealized revenue figure of $300 billion is based on the declarations made by cloud service providers in their latest 10-K (or 20-F filing in case of foreign listed companies) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). To arrive at the unrealized revenue value, we searched for the following declarations in the liability section of the SEC filings of the company’s balance sheet: "unearned revenue", "deferred revenue" or "backlog revenue". Most of the cloud provider companies have declared these values as a part of a short-term or long-term liability on their balance sheets depending upon the status of the contracts involved.For the estimation, we recorded and then added the unrealized revenues for the cloud services providers covered in our study based on their SEC filings. We only included B2B unearned, deferred, or backlog revenue, and excluded any declared unrealized revenue listed as a liability due to B2C subscriptions or services. For example, Microsoft Xbox and other personal subscriptions was recorded under personal cloud subscription services was not included in our data analysis.Our research indicates that this $300 billion represents 53% of currently contracted cloud services. From this we estimate that the total amount of currently contracted cloud services exceeds $600 billion. Companies and their providers estimate the remaining $300 billion in unused cloud commitments will be consumed in the next three to five years but will likely be renegotiated and blended into a larger figure for longer contract terms.

Source: Infosys Knowledge Institute

Respondents by firmographics

Source: Infosys Knowledge Institute

References

Banks turning to the cloud for growth and improved customer experience, Patrick Moorhead, December 2021, Moor Insights & Strategy.
Ahead in the cloud: Bringing agility to an insurance business in Japan with Drew Flynn, hosted by Chad Watt, October 17, 2022, Infosys Knowledge Institute.
CIOs still waiting for cloud investments to pay off, Angus Loten and Isabelle Bousquette, September 29, 2022, The Wall Street Journal.
The slowdown has come for the cloud business, Daniel Howley, Nov. 30, 2022, Yahoo Finance Tech.
Cloud Radar 2021: Boosting profits and enabling a competitive edge with cloud, Chad Watt, May 2021, Infosys Knowledge Institute.
Why a $2 billion google cloud contract has generated only $10 million in revenue so far, Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati, Aug. 27, 2021, The Information.
Sabre Q1 2023 Earnings Report, May 4, 2023, Sabre Corp.
See appendix, Quantifying unused cloud commitments, August 2023, Infosys Knowledge Institute.
Scaling up the Prime Video audio/video monitoring service and reducing costs by 90%, Marcin Kolny, March 22, 2023, Prime Video Tech blog.
So many bad takes — What is there to learn from the Prime Video microservices to monolith story, Adrian Cockcroft, May 6, 2023, Medium.
Amazon prime video’s microservices move doesn’t lead to a monolith after all, Scott M. Fulton III, June 13, 2023, The New Stack.
The FinOps Foundation launches FOCUS, a new spec for sharing cloud cost data, Frederic Lardinois, May 3, 2023, Tech Crunch.
Ahead in the cloud: Navigating cloud security challenges with Ankur Shah, hosted by Chad Watt, August 4, 2023, Infosys Knowledge Institute.
Ahead in the cloud: C-suite teamwork with JG Summit, hosted by Chad Watt, November 1, 2021, Infosys Knowledge Institute.

Authors

Chad Watt | Infosys Knowledge Institute, Dallas

Dylan Cosper | Infosys Knowledge Institute, Dallas

Analysis and Production

Isaac LaBauve | Infosys Knowledge Institute, Dallas

Pramath Kant | Infosys Knowledge Institute, Bengaluru

About Infosys Knowledge Institute

The Infosys Knowledge Institute helps industry leaders develop a deeper understanding of business and technology trends through compelling thought leadership. Our researchers and subject matter experts provide a fact base that aids decision making on critical business and technology issues.

To view our research, visit Infosys Knowledge Institute at infosys.com/IKI or email us at iki@infosys.com.