Today’s we are proposing you a guest post by Dale Vile, co-founder and CEO of Freeform Dynamics
Cloud services are now generally accepted as an integral part of IT delivery. If the findings of a recent survey of 166 IT professionals are anything to go by, however, the chances are that your customers aren’t getting the most from their cloud service estate. Many of those participating in the research said the mix of services they had accumulated over the years was less than ideal in the context of current requirements, with too many workloads running on the wrong type of service. Where this happens, service fees and operational overheads are higher than necessary, and key application requirements are often not fully met. Now that organisations are adopting and understand cloud as part of their strategy, there is a real need for optimising cloud usage.
VARs have an opportunity to add value for their customer base by helping them to revisit the way cloud-related decisions are made in their organisation. The research suggests, for example, that services are not always selected on an objective and coordinated basis.
One of the issues is that developers, application teams and other IT pros can easily become victims of habit. A common story we hear is of a team choosing a service for their first cloud initiative, then using the same service without too much further thought for all subsequent projects.
This, of course, sounds perfectly reasonable. If a service has been used successfully, surely it makes sense to stick with it. In practice, though, it’s not as simple as that.
Cloud services vary considerably with regard to the functionality, service levels and contract terms they offer. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and as project requirements also differ, what’s right in one scenario may not be appropriate in another. Approaching cloud service adoption with a ‘one size fits all’ mindset is, therefore, a recipe for ending up with a lot of technical and/or commercial mismatches.
We then have the consequences of uncoordinated adoption activity across the IT organisation. One group might start down the AWS route, another might get locked into Azure, while a third group might develop a habit for yet another provider. As integration requirements inevitably emerge down the line, getting services working together when each team has been doing its own thing can be a big challenge.
Also often overlooked is the way application needs change over time, e.g. evolving usage patterns, escalating resource/performance demands, and new compliance requirements. Dynamics like these might mean the cloud you started off with to host a particular application ceases to be cost-effective or able to tick the right regulatory boxes. Switching to another service could save money and help to maintain alignment with business expectations. And we shouldn’t forget that the provider community is ever-changing too. When a customer selected that service three years ago, or even last year, it may have been the best option available to meet the needs of a particular application. Since then, however, the original provider may have modified its pricing structures, deprecated key functions, or otherwise made changes that render the service less suitable. Other providers, meanwhile, might well have introduced offerings and features that would suit the application much better.
All of this highlights the need for good governance, i.e. a structured, coordinated and disciplined approach to making cloud-related decisions. This presents an opportunity for resellers to become a trusted advisor and offer impartial advice by providing their customers with guidance on the criteria to be used when assessing needs, and evaluating and selecting options for better business outcomes. By working openly and objectively with customers to help them plot a strategic path to the future, resellers can enhance their credibility, strengthen their relationships, and boost their opportunity within key accounts – the proverbial win/win!
If you want to read more on the changing nature of cloud service provision and get a feel for how your peers in other companies are making cloud-related decisions, we would encourage you to download our full research summary. This is entitled “Turning the tables on cloud service providers; Experienced customers are now calling the shots”, and it’s available from here.
Dale Vile
Dale is a co-founder of Freeform Dynamics, and today runs the company. As part of this, he oversees the organisation’s industry coverage and research agenda, which tracks technology trends and developments, along with IT-related buying behaviour among mainstream enterprises, SMBs and public sector organisations.
In addition to his comprehensive insight into how the IT industry hangs together overall, Dale has a deep knowledge of IT-related decision-making. During his 30 year career, he has worked in enterprise IT delivery with companies such as Heineken and Glaxo, and has held sales, channel management and international market development roles within major IT vendors such as SAP, Oracle, Sybase and Nortel Networks. He even spent a couple of years managing an IT reseller business for Admiral Software.
Dale has been involved in IT industry research since the year 2000 and has a strong reputation for original thinking and alternative perspectives on the latest technology trends and developments. He is a widely published author of books, reports and articles, and is an authoritative and provocative speaker.