New independent research commissioned by Six Degrees has found that, over the last 12 months, 40% of IT decision-makers at SMEs felt rushed while undertaking public cloud migration projects.
Out of all the sectors covered in the report, those working in finance and insurance were most likely to experience these feelings. Indeed, close to 60% confirmed they felt pressure to deliver quickly on cloud transformation project outcomes.
With 80% of Heads of Infrastructure feeling rushed compared to just 20% of CTOs, data from Six Degrees’ UK SME Cloud Intelligence Report 2024 suggests these stresses are more likely to impact junior IT decision-makers.
Perhaps this illustrates that, while CTOs are generally responsible for setting public cloud adoption objectives, the pressure falls on more junior IT decision-makers to deliver — even if those outcomes may take longer than anticipated to produce or the objectives are not clearly thought through.
A short-term view and poor planning mean pressure from the offset
Despite growing evidence of more mature public cloud adoption strategies, our research shows that many businesses are still migrating to the cloud primarily to save money and realise cost savings quickly.
Our data suggests that almost 30% are looking to reduce capital investment, 25% hope to reduce operational costs, and 32% are aiming for improved flexibility (which is often a euphemism for cost savings).
This is a serious mistake: If a business case for cloud migration is predicated primarily on savings benefits, then those implementing the project will feel almost immediate pressure.
They’ll soon discover that the application modernisation needed to realise savings is harder to achieve and takes far longer than initially anticipated. With project delivery deadlines starting to slide and no cost savings on the horizon, they’ll feel compelled to make up time, which is when costly mistakes can be made.
Forget savings! Brace for unexpected costs
It’s not just an inability to achieve cost savings; poorly planned and executed public cloud migration projects based solely on delivering cost savings may actually incur unexpected costs, especially (and ironically) if organisations take a DIY approach to cloud migration to keep costs down.
By taking a basic ‘lift-and-shift’ approach, IT decision-makers will typically push all their applications into their new public cloud environment rather than considering a cloud-native strategy. In addition, they probably won’t change their operating model or necessarily know how to review the architecture, automate critical processes, adapt their applications, or maintain a strong security posture.
Today, of course, they’d also need to consider how to navigate AI implementation, long-term hybrid working, and ESG best practices in a cloud-first environment. It’s quite a task to take on in-house with no support, which might explain why half of respondents said that migrating to the cloud was a much bigger task than expected.
According to our research, almost eight out of 10 UK SMEs have experienced unexpected costs or budget overruns related to their cloud usage. We can also reveal that overspending on cloud usage is more common in the public than private sector—and most common of all in government cloud projects. An incredible 93% of government sector-related SMEs experienced unexpected costs or budget overruns related to their cloud usage. That’s followed by 84% of SMEs operating in the education sector.
This almost universal propensity to overspend demonstrates the need for a clear cloud adoption strategy from the outset. It also highlights a need among SMEs for ongoing cloud management, governance, and FinOps integration as their cloud migration journey evolves.
Align your cloud and business strategy
To be successful, an organisation’s cloud adoption strategy should be an extension of its business strategy. So, it’s reassuring that our research shows some alignment between the top objective for the next 12 months (improving security) and the top driver for cloud adoption (security).
Our data also indicates that some respondents are migrating to public cloud to access innovative technology and adopt new applications that require a hosted environment. These are mature and rational cloud adoption drivers with realistic outcomes—and will play a major part in improving business efficiency, customer experience, and staff productivity.
Public cloud migration projects of this nature will likely have well-thought-out long-term goals. As a result, IT decision-makers will probably experience less pressure to deliver immediate short-term outcomes since everyone will understand the timeframe at the outset, and the ultimate goal should be achievable.
It’s not too late to change course
Many organisations that migrated to public cloud environments primarily as a cost-saving exercise are rethinking their move because they’re not getting the expected commercial benefits — often because applications in their public cloud environments don’t or can’t scale. In fact, a lot of them are considering if some of their applications might be better suited to a different environment — perhaps returning them to on-premises infrastructure and/or private or managed data centres.
This could explain the rise in hybrid cloud adoption and why, according to our research, most (37%) SMEs now operate a predominantly hybrid cloud environment — more than double the number that operate a predominantly public cloud environment (16%).
Whichever strategy you decide to take, remember that we’re experiencing a considerable shortage of cloud engineers and security staff, so it’s wise to find a trusted IT partner that you can work with right from the outset. Although it may look more expensive on paper, taking this route will ultimately save money, help align your business strategy with your cloud strategy, maintain a strong security posture, and generally enhance the IT skills and experience across your business.
To download a full copy of the Six Degrees UK SME Cloud Intelligence Report 2024, please visit: https://www.6dg.co.uk/whitepaper/uk-sme-cloud-intelligence-report-2024/
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