Effective cloud management is the key to maximising ROI

The promise of lower costs, operational simplicity and reduced risks for businesses embracing the cloud has not, for many, been realised. Running costs have escalated to the point where some organisations are repatriating workloads back on-premise. Governance around cloud services has proven to be more complex than anticipated and finding the right resources to manage the cloud has become harder.

Luke Matthews, Brennan’s Head of Cloud, sees these issues, first-hand, in the initial stages of many customer engagements.

“When we conduct an initial public cloud health check, it’s common to identify between 20 and 30% cost savings immediately. And, if you factor in exchange rate changes over time, that only gets worse.”

The key, Matthews says, is to look for opportunities to optimise cloud services across several domains.

“Customers may feel that their environment is stable, but they don’t know if they’re as secure as they can be. They don’t know if the environment is optimised for cost, whether there are changes going on that are ungoverned, or if they are taking advantage of all the functions available to eke out every opportunity from their investment.”

Overcoming these challenges and extracting maximum value from cloud services is not a purely technical pursuit, in Matthews’ view. Technology leaders must elevate their views and engage with other organisational leaders to understand their specific issues and what opportunities they are looking for.

Similarly, the conversation about risk needs to move  from being about specific threats and vulnerabilities to the cost and business impact of data loss and service interruptions.

“CIOs and CISOs have a responsibility to talk with department heads about their business and understand and document the impact of issues or potential outages in the terms that the business understands. Things like revenue churn, opportunity loss, and engagement of staff or customers. A case could be built for resolving cloud management challenges that highlights cost savings and security improvements with real business benefit,” Matthews says.

The journey towards better cloud management and maximising the return on investment starts with a couple of crucial steps. Matthews says it’s important to establish a clear inventory of services in business, not technical, terms. That will support CIOs and CISOs in their conversations with other business leaders.

“Engaging with a technology partner that thinks about their customer’s perspective, and what they want to get out of the technology they’re using, is critical for developing real applied governance in this space,” he says. “That enables organisations to tackle cost containment and business continuity to give all stakeholders peace of mind.”