Many organizations are not communicating internally when it comes to cloud spend. Often, when you ask an organization about cloud spending and planning, most have to admit that they're facing multiple challenges, and their IT departments are overwhelmed. The mounting pressure of a complex technological environment is spreading them too thin, and cost optimization is suffering as a result.
In today's modern workplace, IT, technical services, licensing, and procurement are all getting more responsibility and struggling to keep up. They're all being asked to step outside of their comfort zone, and not only take on more work, but take on a wider range of work. This increasingly complex IT environment is often the source of problems with cloud management and spending.
If you bring IT, Finance, and the C-Suite together in the same room, the conversation tends to be extremely valuable. Unfortunately, the IT and Finance teams are usually asked to do very specific things, but they don't always hear what the CIO is thinking about the bigger picture. The CIO thinks cloud spend can be easily managed but doesn’t always think about the technical pieces that are required to get there. This is why having a cloud maturity assessment is a crucial part of any organization's strategic plan.
To understand why a cloud maturity assessment is important, and why IT, technical services, and the C-Suite need to communicate, you simply have to look at the statistics. In 2019, $14.1 billion of cloud spend will be wasted, and this number will grow as more organizations move their workloads into the cloud. The waste comes from companies not right sizing or right costing properly for their cloud environment.
In addition, according to a 2019 Forbes report, 3,800 data breaches were reported in the first half of the year alone that included 4.1 billion records. Every week there is a fresh report in the news about another big organization that has been hacked or forced to pay the ransomware. Security is a major concern, and the cloud is not immune to hackers. As more people work remotely and rely on cloud services, it's crucial for IT, Finance, and the C-Suite to address these concerns and prevent security problems before they appear.
Many executives think a lack of resources will hamper or slow down their digital transformation, so they delay managing the cloud. Instead, cloud spend grows out of control. Having the right people who can deliver cloud migrations, manage the new environment, and correctly license that environment is a concern for most organizations.
By 2021, 43% of organizations will be mostly in the cloud, and this number will continue to grow over time. As the shift from on-premise to cloud services increases in IT environments, cloud adoption is becoming the norm on a global scale. Ignoring cloud spend management will no longer be an option in the future. This is why having the right governance in place now will make future cloud management easier.
SoftwareOne's FinOps Diagnostic Service is a review-based service that helps organizations understand, plan, and improve their cloud maturity. We help IT, Finance, and the C-Suite come together in one room to talk about what can be done to curb cloud spending and identify areas of improvement in the cloud. We can facilitate the conversations your departments aren't currently having today, identify the gaps, make a plan of action, and ultimately help you save money in the cloud.
Our streamlined delivery process is easy to follow. Our technical and licensing cloud experts gather information using approximately 70 weighted questions based around cloud alignment, maturity, strategy, security optimization, and platforms. Next, we make recommendations and highlight the potential services that will help you reach your goals for your Azure or AWS strategy. Once the areas of improvement have been identified, and the overall score has been determined from an organization's assessment, we create an action plan to bridge the gaps through our services.
What makes our FinOps Diagnostic service stand out is that we co-deliver and co-build with both technical services and Software Lifecycle Management (SLM) in mind. This helps identify gaps that organizations often miss and the disconnect that happens between current processes and governance.
Cloud spend is a growing problem for many organizations that are hampered by the lack of communication among the IT, Finance, and C-Suite departments. In addition to having a conversation about cloud spend, these individuals must do a thorough cloud maturity assessment that focuses on future cloud governance as the organization changes or grows. It's important to identify and bridge any gaps in cloud management before spending and problems increase.
SoftwareOne can offer the expertise needed to optimize your cloud strategy. We will start by assessing your current maturity to understand your best path forward, all while benchmarking your practices against your competition. Then, we’ll work with your team to help create a formulated and detailed audit defense process to prevent unplanned expenditures.
After the assessment is finished, your organization will be equipped with industry-leading best practices that lower your risk of overspending in the cloud. This will help you enjoy better productivity, lower costs, and better security in your cloud environment for years to come.
Without visibility, it’s difficult to right-size and right-cost. Get in touch with our CCO and FinOps experts to gain the visibility and expertise you need.
Without visibility, it’s difficult to right-size and right-cost. Get in touch with our CCO and FinOps experts to gain the visibility and expertise you need.
