While saving money is a commonly cited reason for adopting cloud technology, it’s not the overriding driver for most companies, according to new research.

Indeed while IT cost reduction is an important factor for companies globally, the need to streamline and speed up business processes were greater. These were the results of a survey involving senior managers and corporate IT executives from over 600 large companies conducted by Tata Consultancy Services.

Among US respondents, 19% of their total applications run in the cloud compared to 12% in Europe. But both regions lag behind Latin America and Asia-Pacific, which run 39% and 28%, respectively.

“IT cost reduction is an important factor, but not the most important,” the company said in the survey results. “Rather, standardising software applications and business processes across a company (in the US and Asia-Pacific) and ramping systems up or down faster (in Europe and Latin America) are the most highly rated drivers for shifting on-premises applications to the cloud. And the factors driving companies to launch entirely new applications in the cloud are quite different – to institute new business processes and launch new technology-dependent products and services.”

The study did find that companies in all regions expect their cloud usage to grow dramatically by 2014. This follows from a new survey by IBM that found the number of enterprises using cloud computing will double in the next three years.

In addition to the added flexibility and scalability offered through cloud computing, the ability to improve regulatory compliance, participate in green IT, and improved systems integration are all factors that benefit users of the technology.