Findings from Wasabi 2023 Cloud Storage Index on M&E Industry

• M&E public cloud storage use is increasing rapidly, with 89% of organisations looking to increase (74%) or maintain (15%) their cloud services.
• 54% of M&E organisations went over budget expectations for cloud spending in the last year, and half (49%) of M&E organisations’ public cloud storage bills were spent on fees.  
• M&E organisations are particularly concerned about security, citing new data security, backup and recovery requirements as the top reason for increasing public cloud storage budgets.

Wasabi Technologies, Inc. is releasing the findings of its global cloud storage index, focused on the M&E industry.

The survey, commissioned by Wasabi and conducted by Vanson Bourne Ltd, seeks to uncover the changing attitudes amongst IT leaders in M&E organisations toward public cloud storage adoption, the factors that influence storage buying decisions, and the top priorities when it comes to budget, use cases, security, and cloud data migration.

Survey findings highlighted that, while M&E organisations are still relatively new to cloud storage (69% of respondents had been using cloud storage for 3 years or less), public cloud storage use is on the rise, with 89% of respondents looking to increase (74%) or maintain (15%) their cloud services. M&E respondents said they allocate 13.9% of their IT budgets to public cloud storage services, on average. However, overdrawn budgets due to hidden fees, alongside cybersecurity and data loss concerns, remain problematic for M&E organisations.

“The M&E industry is a key vertical for cloud storage services, driven by the need for accessibility to large media files among multiple organizations and geographically distributed teams,” said Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence, Wasabi, and a former IDC analyst. “While complex fee structures and cybersecurity concerns remain obstacles for many M&E organisations,  planned increases in cloud storage budgeting over the next year, combined with a very high prevalence of storage migration from on premises to cloud; clearly shows the M&E industry is embracing and growing their cloud storage use year on year.“

Complex fees are a major challenge for M&E organisations globally 

• More than half of M&E organisations exceeded budgeted spend on cloud storage services in the last year.
• Nearly half (49%) of M&E organisations’ public cloud storage bill was comprised of fees in 2022, with the other half going to actual storage capacity used.  
• Understanding the costs and fees associated with cloud usage was cited as the number one cloud migration challenge for M&E organisations.
• M&E organisations rely heavily on data access, egress and ingress, a key reason why M&E respondents indicated the highest prevalence of API call fees compared to the global average.
• M&E respondents showed a very high prevalence of data migration to cloud, with 95% saying they migrated storage from on-premises to public cloud in the last year.

M&E organisations are concerned about cybersecurity and data loss

• M&E respondents increasing their public cloud storage budgets in the next 12 months cited new data security, backup and recovery requirements as the top reason driving the increase, compared to the global average where security ranked third.
• Almost half (45%) of M&E organisations reported using more than one public cloud provider. Data security requirements were one of the top reasons why M&E organisations were choosing a multi-cloud strategy, ranking a close second (44%) to different buying centres within the organisation making their own purchase decisions (47%).
• The top 3 biggest security concerns M&E organisations have with public cloud include: 
  • Lack of native security services (42%)
  • Lack of native backup, disaster and data protection tools and services (39%)
  • Lack of experience with cloud platform or adequate security training (38%)

“Organizations in the M&E industry are flocking to cloud storage as their digital assets need to be stored securely, cost-effectively and accessed quickly,” said Whit Jackson, VP M&E, Wasabi. “Barriers around cost and security still concern M&E organizations, but with Wasabi hot cloud storage, the M&E industry can affordably store all of their content in the cloud with predictable pricing – from raw footage to finished product – with data securely archived yet immediately accessible at a moment’s notice.” 

Methodology
Wasabi commissioned the independent market research agency Vanson Bourne to conduct research into cloud storage. The study surveyed 1,000 IT decision-makers who had at least some involvement in or responsibility for public cloud storage purchases in their organisation.

The research took place in November and December 2022 from organisations with more than 100 employees across all public and private sectors. All interviews were conducted using a multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate.

This report focuses on the subset of respondents in the M&E industry. Their responses illustrate their vertical’s practices around the use of public cloud storage and this report will reference these responses in context of the range of industries surveyed in the full Cloud Storage Index Report.