More than two thirds of businesses plan to increase their cloud computing spending in 2017, according to a new report from B2B research provider Clutch.

The report, which polled 283 IT professionals at businesses across the United States, also found that for almost half (47%) of organisations, increased cost is a key challenge with their cloud provider.

48% of those polled said they expect to increase their cloud computing spend by 11%-30% this year, compared to 14% of respondents for a 31-50% increase. 23% said they expect their spending to remain approximately flat.

“Cloud is the new normal,” said Jeremy Przygode, CEO of managed service provider Stratalux. “When businesses need to evaluate new solutions, or need to do a hardware refresh on existing solutions… cloud is the go-to solution to figure out how to do that.”

45% of respondents said security was the biggest benefit of using the cloud, ahead of increased efficiency (41%), more data space (40%), flexibility (33%) and scalability (28%).

Przygode argues the transition towards public cloud is an ‘inevitability’. “I believe that all roads lead to public cloud eventually,” he said. “Different companies have different pathways to it.

“Some are going directly to public cloud; others are trying to build a private cloud first because they still want to retain control. But ultimately I believe that over time they will eventually become public cloud customers as well.”

Only 37% of respondents said they are using a public cloud today, compared with 68% for private cloud, and 47% for hybrid cloud. Kevin Rubin, president and COO of Stratosphere Networks, explained: “When you go with a hybrid solution, you have to make sure as a company it’s engineered properly to gain access to it.

“It’s a little bit more challenging – but customising your cloud experience allows [a business] to leverage different toolsets that are truly drilled down to their department, their individuals, and how they do business.”

You can read the full report here.