Companies that have sophisticated cloud security seem to be more productive, and seem to be earning more money at the end of the day.

A new report by Netskope, called ‘The Maturity of Cloud Application Security Strategies’ found that a fifth of companies (21 per cent) are in the mature ‘enabler’ cloud security category. These companies have 4.9 per cent higher revenues than anticipated. Those organisations that are in the less mature categories, ‘discoverer’ and ‘controller’, earn 3.6 per cent more revenue than anticipated.

But it’s not just financial gain that these companies are enjoying. The report argues that they also enjoy significantly improved productivity, while 17 per cent, and 23 per cent of the ‘discoverers’ and ‘controllers’ have the same benefits, respectively.

“The data in this report shows that many organizations, including ‘enablers,’ still have work to do to fully realize the advantages of the cloud,” said Sanjay Beri, founder and CEO, Netskope.

“To help the industry move closer to the final stage of maturity, we have developed a self-assessment tool for enterprises to gauge their process on the cloud security journey, and we look forward to working with enterprises around the world to accelerate their adoption of cloud services.”

Netskope claims that ‘discoverers’ and ‘controllers’ can improve their posture significantly by employing a cloud security architect. It argues that most ‘enablers’ have this category filled.