The challenge

UpCloud, a European cloud service provider, sought to publish a thought leadership report on the rapidly evolving cloud landscape, particularly around security, compliance, and data sovereignty. With increasing global attention on where data resides and how it is protected, UpCloud wanted to uncover how organisations across Europe and the US perceive these issues, and how such perceptions might drive the adoption of European cloud vendors. The company also aimed to use this data internally to guide product decisions and refine its messaging.

The approach

SlashData designed and fielded a custom survey reaching 300 cloud decision-makers in Europe and the US (professionals involved in the selection and management of cloud services within organisations of at least five employees). The study explored, among other things, organisations’ current and planned usage of European and US cloud service providers (CSPs), key selection factors, challenges organisations face in managing their cloud environments, motivations and barriers for adopting European CSPs, and their top priorities around cloud services and infrastructure in the next two years.

The survey was hosted on SlashData’s proprietary research platform, ensuring high-quality responses through advanced data cleaning and fraud detection processes.

The result

The resulting report (2025 Cloud Landscape in Europe and the US) provided UpCloud with a clear, data-backed narrative for both external and internal use. Key findings from the report included:

• More organisations across Europe and North America are looking to include European providers in their cloud strategies in the next two years

• Security, performance, and data privacy and residency are the top factors when considering cloud service providers.

• Free add-on services, trials, or credits are not enough to attract cloud decision-makers.

• Integrating AI into cloud infrastructure and processes is a key priority for one-third of cloud decision-makers over the next 1–2 years.

• The vast majority of organisations have already taken action or are preparing to support AI workloads on cloud infrastructure.

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"SlashData was an amazing partner to work with. They really helped us shape our project from scratch, and showed a genuine commitment to helping us get the most value out of it. Running a survey is not as easy as some may think. It takes a lot of thought and expertise to get it right and to make it interesting, engaging and useful. In this regard, SlashData's expertise was invaluable to us. Their team was always reachable and willing to advise, and they went through several iterations of the project with us, helping us really mature our ideas and improve the survey. I look forward to further joint collaboration opportunities in the future."

Why SlashData

SlashData specialises in understanding tech leaders and developers - their needs, preferences, and behaviours - making us the ideal partner for studies targeting the technology ecosystem. We serve as a comprehensive market research partner, guiding clients from an initial high-level research brief to actionable data from their target audience, addressing key business questions.