Rushed to the cloud?

New independent research from Six Degrees has revealed that 40% of UK mid-market IT decision-makers felt rushed while undertaking public cloud migration projects. That rises to 41% of IT Directors, 43% of Cloud Architects, 45% of CIOs, 47% of Heads of IT, and 80% of Heads of Infrastructure.

“If an organisation’s case for public cloud migration is based primarily on savings benefits, then those in charge are in for a shock. The application modernisation necessary to realise savings from public cloud migration projects is usually much harder to achieve and takes far longer than originally anticipated. As a result, there’s likely to be pressure to move this phase along as quickly as possible—often causing problems and incurring more costs in the long term. This explains why so many IT decision-makers told us they felt rushed,” comments Vince DeLuca, Chief Executive Officer at Six Degrees.

Despite this advice, data from Six Degrees’ UK SME Cloud Intelligence Report 2024 suggests that a significant amount of cloud services adoption strategies are still driven primarily by a desire for cost savings. Indeed, a quarter of IT decision-makers said their primary reason was to reduce operational costs. Furthermore, many other reasons cited by respondents for cloud services adoption are also closely linked to cost savings. These include flexibility (32%), reduced capital investment (28%), and reduced reliance on on-premises infrastructure (24%).

Six Degrees’ research also reveals that eight out of 10 UK SMEs have experienced unexpected costs or budget overruns relating to cloud usage. This almost universal propensity to overspend demonstrates the requirement for a clear cloud adoption strategy from the outset. It also highlights a need amongst SMEs for ongoing cloud management, governance, and FinOps integration as their cloud migration journeys evolve. In turn, this underscores why it’s crucial for SMEs to partner with an MSP on their cloud migration journey and get trusted advice and expert counsel at each stage.

But it’s not all doom and gloom; our research data indicates that some respondents are migrating to public cloud to access innovative technology and adopt new applications that require a hosted environment. These are mature and rational cloud adoption drivers with realistic outcomes—and will significantly improve business efficiency, customer experience, and staff productivity. Furthermore, the report offers hope that IT decision-makers are beginning to measure the success of their cloud transformation projects based on increased productivity, security, positive user experience and automation—as well as reduced application downtime.

Vince concludes: “Our findings underscore why it’s unrealistic to expect immediate cost savings from public cloud adoption—and the unnecessary stress this can create for those involved. However, when orchestrated appropriately with considered outcomes, cloud transformation projects will deliver tangible benefits, reduce technical debt, manage risk, and deliver greater efficiency—all of which will also play a key role in driving down business costs. The message is clear: set realistic goals and outcomes from the outset and play the long game to maximise public cloud adoption benefits.”