62 per cent of businesses claim cloud maintenance costs are higher than expected

New research commissioned by SoftwareONE, a global leader in software and cloud portfolio management, has revealed that more than six in ten organisations (62 per cent) believe that the actual costs of maintaining cloud technologies are higher than they expected. This indicates that, despite the evident benefits that the cloud brings to an organisation’s digital transformation efforts, businesses can run into difficulties if they do not have the technology, licensing agreements and ongoing monitoring procedures in place to effectively manage and optimise cloud-based software and applications within their wider IT estate.

 

The survey, conducted by market research firm Vanson Bourne, also found that 36 per cent of businesses feel that cloud-based “as-a-service” offerings – such as SaaS, PaaS or IaaS – have increased in complexity over the past two years, with an additional 33 per cent believing that the level of complexity has remained unchanged in this time. When viewed alongside the unexpected management costs associated with the cloud, it becomes clear that cloud deployments are fraught with challenges if businesses do not have the means to administer the various elements of their implementations effectively.

 

Zak Virdi, UK Managing Director at SoftwareONE said: “The cloud has been instrumental in helping to bring greater agility and efficiency to IT, but it’s also important to recognise that making it a success takes time, as well as a commitment to proper, long-term integration and management. This means selecting the right technology, meeting the right licensing agreements, and putting frameworks are in place to consistently and closely monitor the entire implementation.

 

“From our research, it’s clear that the rapid growth in cloud services and options – while providing an exceptional level of choice to businesses – is also leading to organisations struggling to fully maximise  cloud investments while keeping expenditure as low as possible,” continued Virdi.

 

To illustrate this point further, the research also found that more than four in ten (44 per cent) of respondents claimed that budget restraints often push their organisation towards choosing second or third-choice technology options, rather than the option that they felt was ideal for them. Moreover, 38 per cent said that the management of licences and subscriptions for both cloud deployments and on-premise software pose a significant degree of complexity.

 

For Virdi, this provides additional evidence of a need for technology that can ease the management of so many different software-based requirements, whether they are based in the cloud or on-premise.

 

He added: “With so many plates to keep spinning and so many different responsibilities to fulfil – on-premise and cloud deployments, licensing requirements, keeping costs down and so on – it’s absolutely vital that businesses are able to cut out or automate much of the administrative burden, enabling companies to maximise ROI and make their digital transformation efforts a resounding success.”

 

Virdi concluded: “Amid the urge to adopt cloud, it’s about being able to step back and take stock of what needs to be done from a management perspective. If organisations embrace a platform that allows them to manage their entire software estate and cloud portfolio from a single location, they will be in a much better position to monitor, analyse and optimise the resources at their disposal.”