The online research, which has been published today to coincide with the opening of the Infosecurity Europe show in London, suggests that only 41% of respondents are planning to migrate their IT resources to the cloud.
The study, which was conducted earlier this month by YouGov and took in responses from more than 150 middle managers in firms of 249 or more employees, found that almost one in five (18%) managers said their businesses had considered – but rejected – the idea of moving any aspect of their IT resources to the cloud.
In addition, says Kaspersky, almost a quarter (24%) had not even considered the cloud as an option.
And with 79% of the survey's respondents representing firms with 1,000 or more employees, Kaspersky Lab says that companies could be missing out on significant cost and efficiency benefits.
Andrew Lintell, the IT security vendor's sales director for the UK and Ireland, said that cloud technology has huge potential for streamlining IT operations, particularly in larger organisations with more sophisticated IT requirements.
"Cloud-based solutions can make IT systems leaner as well as more agile and cost effective – freeing up valuable IT expertise and resources", he explained.
Lintell went on to say that Kaspersky's research has found that there is still considerable confusion about the cloud.
Companies, he says, may be concerned about where data is stored and how they can keep it secure, but they should also view the positive gains.