ISVs dedicate a significant amount of time and resources to their application development, sales strategy, market expansion and technical support for their clients. However, the one area often overlooked is the accelerating costs and utilization of the public cloud. Cloud usage can be one of the highest expenditures for an ISV after personnel costs. Organizations with cloud applications or that plan on developing in the cloud should consider establishing policies and controls to govern their cloud budget and spend.
Public cloud costs are becoming a significant line item in IT budgets for many organizations and especially for ISVs. According to the Flexera State of the Cloud Report 2020, 73% of respondents view optimizing the existing use of cloud for cost savings as the top initiative for the year ahead while the second ranked initiative is moving more workloads to the cloud. The momentum for public cloud adoption is accelerating yet few ISVs have established a proper governance plan.
Understanding how cloud resources are being used is key to effective spend management for ISVs. However, the drive for governance and spend management is continuously challenged by the explosion of their cloud consumption. If cloud costs are not controlled and optimized, the ISV may find themselves faced with declining profit margins or having to increase the cost of the solution to their customers. PyraCloud helps to identify cost savings opportunities, including areas for contract consolidation and preventing unnecessary purchases. Overall visibility helps to better manage cloud consumption by tracking against budgeted spend and sending alerts when an overage puts the budget at risk.
Partnering with one of the large cloud hyperscalers, such as Microsoft or AWS, tends to be the gold standard for many ISVs as they develop, grow and scale their business. As a partner, you are entitled to many benefits that enable you to further build your solution and reach more customers. Availing yourself to co-marketing and co-selling programs is a good practice but the tactical guidance is not always so clear without direct support. In addition, your partnership provides you access to unique incentives and offers that will enable you to invest further into your solution. With over 30+ years as a Microsoft partner and a top level partner with AWS, SoftwareOne is adept at navigating the programs and benefits that ISV partners should be leveraging to grow their business.
Accessing technical support for your cloud service is a critical component for ISVs as the impact could directly affect your end user experience. 72+ hour SLA response time from your current provider is simply not good enough in many cases. System downtime is toxic to your business success and can negatively impact your client relationships. SoftwareOne as your trusted advisor in IT support takes the time to understand your business needs and helps you achieve your business goals with tailored, flexible and scalable support services.
Regardless of your public cloud preference being Azure or AWS, our Simple solutions provide a comprehensive approach for ISVs looking to control costs, gain insights into cloud utilization, and access strong and reliable support services. In addition, our partner teams understand and have a strong desire to collaborate to identify solutions that solve customer challenges. Knowledge sharing, business planning and co-selling are natural evolutions of working with our ISV partners.
Author
