How to strategically optimise your cloud spend into the future

Investment in cloud services has accelerated in recent years, particularly as the effects of COVID-19 took hold across the globe, and this trend is not anticipated to slow down any time soon. In fact, Australian organisations are expected to spend AU$10.6 billion on public cloud services in 2021, an increase of 18.4 per cent from 2020, according to Gartner.

However, while it’s essential that organisations continue to invest in cloud services to drive business forward, the real value of cloud comes from optimising solutions to make them work best for your unique business needs and requirements so you can maximise your return on investment (ROI). Without optimising cloud solutions, your business risks losing efficiencies and reducing productivity across the board.

There are three essential steps you need to take to maximise your ROI on the move to cloud.

  1. Get a clear vision of the future and set a roadmap that includes costs

It’s one thing to decide to simply invest in cloud, and another to take your business to another level entirely by researching what cloud platform will work best for the ongoing and changing needs of your business, such as Microsoft Azure. Taking your business to the next level in cloud involves setting out a clear roadmap of digital transformation that includes costs and time. This doesn’t mean investing the cost and time of deploying cloud services on its own; it means also assessing the underlying training and maintenance required for a cloud platform, as well as any additional technology upgrades required to ensure your existing processes and solutions will integrate seamlessly with your cloud platform.

  1. Set up and manage cloud services with a three-step approach

Once you’ve settled on a cloud platform, taking a three-step, successfully proven process will help to achieve your deployment vision:

  • Align your IT readiness and security requirements with your business strategy and objectives by conducting cloud readiness and security assessments
  • Transform your cloud platform by implementing guardrails that will facilitate future innovation and rapid workload migration
  • Scale your business as needed by leveraging managed services and ongoing innovation.

  1. Realise the full cloud potential through ongoing optimisation, control, and flexibility

Taking a set-and-forget approach to the cloud risks businesses failing to achieve their full potential or ROI with cloud services. Cloud technologies advance rapidly. By continually assessing and reviewing cloud platforms and investing in ongoing optimisation, you can futureproof your business and achieve greater control and flexibility.

Organisations need to maximise the return on their cloud investment, but squeezing every last drop of value from the cloud requires a level of know-how and experience that most businesses don’t have at their fingertips. Working with a proven and trusted partner can help you realise the full transformative benefits of cloud. By investing in the support of a managed services partner, you can keep the focus on scaling your business, while leaving the complexity of managing your IT systems up to experts that can maximise their value.

At Logicalis Australia, we work closely with our customers to help them maximise their ROI on the move to cloud with Microsoft Azure. For more information on how we can help you transform your business through the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, contact the team today.