Research by Virtustream and Dell Technologies has revealed multi-cloud businesses are on the rise, with 86% of companies using more than one vendor to help with their digital transformation efforts.

The companies questioned more than 700 businesses with at least 1,000 employees about their cloud usage and it found that the vast majority of firms are employing multiple companies to run cloud-based services because collectively, they present better performance and higher levels of innovation.

“Multi-cloud is a clear reality of the next era in cloud computing,” Deepak Patil, senior vice president of product and technology at Virtustream said. “Whether it is employed to balance risk or to leverage the advantages and use cases of various cloud platforms – enterprises are increasingly moving their workloads to multiple cloud providers.”

The cloud company also said that more than half of businesses have moved their business-critical applications to the cloud, demonstrating a real trust in cloud technology.

That translates into huge revenues for tech firms, with Virtustream calculating those using the cloud are pumping at least $50 million into cloud-based tech. The majority of these businesses plan to keep investment the same or increase spend to reflect the changing technology landscape.

Three-quarters of businesses will revisit their cloud strategy in the next few years or will redevelop their existing plans to ensure they stay competitive and this is motivated by operational efficiency, respondents told the cloud company.

“We will continue our decade-long track record of migrating and managing mission-critical applications in the cloud, but will also provide a flexible solution that accommodates the multi-cloud architecture enterprises require, while improving both the performance of the applications and the overall business by helping customers to realize operational efficiencies and focus on innovation,” Patil added.