Forrester says India enterprises favour hybrid cloud

Forrester has published a report on cloud adoption and strategy among Indian enterprises, finding that 96% of respondents operate a hybrid cloud strategy.

The findings suggest India's cloud market is shifting from migration to managing more complex environments. As enterprises expand digital operations and AI use, they are increasingly focused on cost control, resilience, governance and data sovereignty.

The report draws on Forrester's Cloud Survey, 2025, which examined cloud strategy, investment and operational priorities among enterprise cloud decision-makers and practitioners in India. It found hybrid cloud has become the preferred operating model, with organisations placing workloads across public cloud, private cloud and on-premises systems according to business and regulatory needs.

A large share of respondents also reported using cloud-native technologies beyond public cloud environments. The research found that 85% of public cloud architects use such technologies outside public cloud settings, pointing to a push for greater flexibility across infrastructure environments.

Resilience focus

Operational resilience emerged as one of the strongest themes in the survey. Among priorities for what the report described as day-two cloud success, 68% of Indian enterprises cited improving resilience across cloud platforms, while 66% pointed to developing cloud skill sets.

Data governance and management ranked close behind at 64%, and 63% said better cloud connectivity was a top priority. Together, those responses suggest attention is shifting from initial adoption to the reliability and oversight of systems that support core business operations.

Spending discipline is also becoming more formalised. The report found that 67% of enterprise cloud strategy decision-makers have an established FinOps practice, while another 18% plan to adopt one within the next 12 months.

That trend reflects tighter scrutiny of cloud spending as organisations increase outlays on digital infrastructure and AI. FinOps, a practice centred on cost visibility and accountability, is becoming more common as enterprises seek to align cloud use with financial controls.

AI pressure

AI is also starting to influence where companies choose to run workloads. Forrester found that 30% of respondents are investing in AI, machine learning and generative AI services through public cloud providers.

At the same time, enterprises are reassessing whether all AI workloads belong in the public cloud. Concerns over infrastructure costs, resource availability, performance requirements and long-term scalability are shaping those decisions.

Sovereignty and governance requirements are adding another layer to cloud architecture choices. Sensitive workloads continue to stay on premises or move to private cloud environments because of data sensitivity, regulatory obligations, licensing limits and migration complexity.

That marks a departure from earlier cloud-first approaches, when public cloud migration was often treated as the default route. Organisations are now becoming more deliberate about placing workloads in environments that best fit security, performance, cost and governance requirements.

The report described this as a move towards more cloud-smart strategies. In practice, enterprises are not abandoning public cloud, which remains central to many modernisation efforts, but are becoming more selective in how they use it.

India's fast-growing digital economy has made cloud infrastructure a central issue for many large organisations, particularly as they expand online services and prepare systems for heavier AI use. The survey suggests the next phase of cloud maturity will depend less on headline adoption rates and more on whether companies can run hybrid estates efficiently within tighter operational and regulatory constraints.

“India's cloud market has entered a new phase where success is no longer defined by how quickly organizations move workloads to the cloud, but by how effectively they operate hybrid environments at scale,” said Biswajeet Mahapatra, Principal Analyst, Forrester. “As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, they must balance innovation with resilience, governance, sovereignty, and cost control. Organisations that prioritize workload flexibility, strengthen operational discipline, and embed governance into their cloud strategies will be better positioned to maximize the value of their cloud investments while adapting to evolving business and regulatory requirements.”