Insight exposes the challenges for those running cloud projects

Customers continue to waste money on cloud capacity they are not using to the tune of millions of pounds a year. 

With increasing numbers looking to the cloud as the answer to their needs the spending on the technology has increased, but so have the costs for those that fail to utilise the capacity they are paying for. 

Research from channel player Insight has revealed that European enterprises are spending £29.48m on cloud services, with a sizeable chunk (42%) arguing that the technology has been critical to help deliver their digital transformation efforts over the last couple of years. 

The  2019 European Insight Intelligent Technology Index (ITI) also uncovered that 30% of cloud spend was being splashed out on services that were mot used., equating to around £8.8m in the 1,000 firms quizzed across Europe. 

That situation could leave the door open for the channel to step in with some useful advice and the Insight findings listed those areas where customers needed most assistance: determining best-fit workloads for public, private and hybrid cloud; planning and allocating budget for cloud consumption; and lack of visibility of used services at the cost centre, workload and application level. 

“Cloud continues to be a mission-critical enabler for agile and digital business, but it needs the right approach,” said Wolfgang Ebermann, president, Insight EMEA.  

“A robust operating model, that provides oversight and continual optimisation of cloud environments, is critical. Under-utilised technology has been a problem for decades, so it’s not surprising to see the problem spread to the cloud. However, by putting the right controls in place, organisations can optimise cloud consumption and ensure they only pay for services they are using.” 

The Insight Intelligence index not only uncovered the problems with working out the costs of cloud but found that the pressure of digital transformation was also a burden that many customers were struggling to wrestle with. 

Of concern was the 69% of respondents that expressed the view that the IT ‘is being set up to fail’ as it gets more transformational projects heaped onto the must-do list. Insight warned that the IT department must not be the sole owner of the digital flame and others in the business also had to step up. 

Those IT systems are undergoing change at a time when security is constantly increasing as a challenge and business owners are looking for ways that technology can help reduce costs. Helping keep data secure was the main worry that kept the respondents to the Insight research yup at night.  

“The strategic importance of IT as a key enabler for future business success is clearly becoming more understood at board level,” said Ebermann. “The role of the CIO is clearly evolving from managing IT to business partner. They have become the Digital Transformation Change Agent and a core member of the executive board. Yet the CIO and IT cannot solely be held responsible for digital innovation; the entire business has a role to play. Without enterprise wide support and ownership organisations won’t be able to fulfil their digital ambitions.”