This article originally appeared on WSJ.com's CIO Journal (may require subscription). 

Over the next three years, cloud adoption will come from companies that make little or no use of it today and they will demand more private and hybrid cloud offerings.

That’s good news for CIOs and other IT users who have waited on the sidelines while vendors created solutions that didn’t always solve the right problems. More cautious, price sensitive and concerned about security, these CIOs should now find vendors more receptive to collaborative relationships that give them a voice in shaping the products and services they need in order to realize big improvements in their IT performance.

CIOs at the next wave of cloud users share some characteristics with CIOs at companies already using the cloud. For example, CIOs who have moved into the position within the past year are twice as likely to use cloud (or consider it) compared with leaders who have been on the job more than six years, based on Bain & Company’s survey of IT executives at nearly 500 North American companies. New IT leaders often take the job with a mandate to make major changes.

Michael Heric is a partner with Bain & Company in New York. Ron Kermisch is a Bain partner in Boston and head of Bain’s Telecommunications practice in the Americas region.

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